Hills of Moonlight
by Saddletank
Summary: A Castle in the Sky sequel. Sheeta and Pazu's onward journey in the world and with each other. Adventure, action, steampunkyness, romance and a spiritual rural society in Gondoa. Now rated M for violent imagery and the presence of several citrus fruits.
1. Chapter 0 : Introduction

**Chapter 0 – Introduction and Notes  
**

UPDATE :: 3 MAY 2007  
Following discussion with one reader I have now re-rated this story M due to the strength of the language and imagery used in Chapter 61 "Union Part Two : Body". I have also lowered the tone of a couple of key phrases in that chapter which I felt were a little beyond reasonable for these two characters. I haven't taken anything away, just subtley taken the edge off three phrases.

UPDATE :: 12 MARCH 2007  
A quick note about how I see the ages of Pazu and Sheeta. I think Miyazaki's intent was to make these two children about 13 or 14 years old. They seem to be about that age at the beginning of the movie, Pazu particularly when he plays his trumpet looks very young. However as the movie goes on and we get to the rescue from the burning Tepis Fortress and later the fighting on Laputa, Pazu just looks to me a lot older than 13-14. He becomes a man of action and has great physical strength and spiritual and mental resourcefulness. He is even drawn differently and in more than one shot we see he has pretty impressive biceps. Sheeta too seems to age as the story goes on, although less so that in Pazu's case. She is however drawn with a significant bosom for a 13-14 year old. So in my head I see these two as no longer children. To me they look and act like young adults.

Please therefore bear in mind that in "Hills of Moonlight" I treat them as 15, and they both become 16 during the story.

UPDATE :: 7 MARCH 2007  
Yesterday I decided that this story is going to take a new direction. Originally I planned it to be a small cute little thing but in the last 24 hours while writing "Barley" I suddenly fell in love with my Pazu character and decided that he and my Sheeta deserve better. So this is quite possibly going to turn epic, no idea how long it will be. I still have the same game-plan in place, the same ending, the same characters, I just want to commit more to it. From the movie I have worked out the geography of the lands they are in and I also became inspired to create some Gondoan language words which will be introduced over time. The story will be one of a relationship between a boy and a girl, and how it grows, but that will be a bumpy ride, not just between the two of them but against a background of world events. So buckle up your seatbelt and put on your flying goggles and warm avaitors jacket, we're heading into the storm clouds.

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Hi all

This is my first foray into fiction based on "Castle in the Sky" and I'm here entirely because of the undue pressure, cajoling, nagging, blackmail, gun waving, pleading, gentle stroking, maniacal grinning, encouragement, support and downright whining of a fellow ff dot net denizen, one Mr Vook by name. Vook very kindly wrote me some reviews for some of my "Whisper of the Heart" based fanfics and I was greatly encouraged by his words of support. Vook told me he'd always wanted to see more "Castle" work and now that I have finished my monumental trilogy of "Whisper" stories I decided to look more closely at "Castle" for fanfic material. So I watched the movie several more times and was struck by the intense relationship between Sheeta and Pazu. Miyazaki doesn't touch on this much at all, nothing is given to us overtly but we can see from their experiences and their actions toward each other that Pazu and Sheeta would most probably become a very close couple after the movie ends. Certainly they are completely comfortable in each others company. So, intrigued by that, I began scribbling down some ideas.

As with most of the things I write, I have a basic plan in place but it's quite hazy and will take several chapters to develop, so this story will begin quite simply and things will be revealed over time. All my plans are made of a very stretchy rubbery material and can assume quite different shapes as time goes on.

Please review what you read, I like to be encouraged or, if I'm going off course, steered back (gently please) onto the right path. I also have a forum set up (click on my pen name) where I will post up various thoughts, ramblings and general mutterings about the story, how it might go or has gone and so on, so please post there as well. If I get reviews I tend to also copy/paste them in the forum so I have a document to refer to all this good stuff in one place.

So, please, pull up a chair, pour yourself a drink, get your comfy reading slippers on and join me.

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Legal Bit

Please note that I do not claim ownership in any way shape or form to the anime "Laputa: Castle in the Sky" nor the novel by Osamu Kameoka and illustrated by Hayao Miyazaki. Studio Ghibli and Kameoka/Miyazaki own those copyrights (lucky blighters).


	2. Chapter 1 : Descent

**Chapter 1 – Descent  
**  
She was cold. No, more than cold, freezing. Bitterly, bitterly cold. She had balled herself up into the smallest possible shape, tucking in all extremities and trying to reduce surface area. She'd sat, first of all with arms folded tightly over her knees hugging them to her chest but now she moved them behind her knees and slid them across her front, wiggling her fingers into her armpits, where there was some heat from her core. That was the secret, keeping limbs in as close contact to the body's warm core wherever possible, she'd learned that much as a child, in winter, working the farm.

She knew the heavy lined aviators poncho was keeping her alive, keeping in the valuable heat, but even so, her toes were like ice, stuck out furthest from her core and covered only by thin shoes, she wondered if they had already fallen off, she'd stopped feeling them long ago. She could shift position and tuck her legs under herself but that would mean shifting her weight and that would affect him, and his piloting. Where she was now, her back was kept away from the metal bulkhead behind her, if she tucked her legs under she'd naturally lean back and she didn't want to think about how cold that steel would be at this altitude.

She hugged her fingers tighter into her armpits and pressed her chin harder to her knees.

To try and forget the cold she watched him. Apart from the metal cockpit walls rising to above her head, the red-pink awning of the cloth wing, the blue of the sky and the occasional cloud, he was the only other thing she could see.

He wore only his canvas workmen's trousers, a shirt, waistcoat and a jacket he'd found stashed in one of the tool lockers. Too big for him, no doubt belonging to one of the pirates, it served it's purpose, to keep out the wind. He must be frozen, standing as he was, legs and arms apart, braced against the control column facing into the slipstream. The only warm things he wore were the thick gauntlets, the leather flying hat and his goggles. Even his feet were bare. Yet he seemed to relish this, to revel in it. She watched him moving. For a while he would put his weight on one leg placing the machine's centre of gravity to starboard and holding the control column hard up to the rear quadrant, tucked into his gut, working against forces she could only imagine. Then, suddenly, responding entirely to things she couldn't see, he would shift his weight to his other leg, letting the machine's centre of gravity roll to port and she'd feel the nose dip down and they would slide faster across the sky, trading altitude for range. After a shorter time in this attitude he'd once again haul up on the column, move his legs again and swing his hips to the right. She watched this dance for a long time, wondering when he would collapse in a heap from sheer cold and exhaustion and the machine would stand on its nose and tip them into the sea.

But he didn't. And it didn't. The hours, like the frozen air, slid by them and the sky began to take on a warmer hue, the few clouds that flurried past her field of view were pink and lilac now and a rim of sunlight on the edge of the cockpit by her head changed colour as she watched, from yellow to gold to salmon and finally to the red of evening. Night was coming, surely he didn't intend to pilot at night?

"Where are we?" she asked  
"Are you cold?"  
"No, I'm fine. Are we going to land?"  
"Not on water we're not."  
"Are we still over the sea?"  
"We are but there's land ahead, thirty minutes I think."  
"Where?"

She unfolded her aching body and with a groan raised herself to peer over the cockpit side. She was struck by two things, first how incredibly cold it was up here, her upper body, even wrapped in the poncho, exposed to the biting wind, at once felt its keen edge. It was summer and hot at the middle latitudes but here, high up, it was cold, and at speed the wind made it colder. Even in the furnace of the equatorial summer, this high up it was always cold. The other thing that made her gasp in surprise was the light. Whilst flying with Dola she had experienced high altitude sunsets and sunrises and not once did they fail to move her. The sky was almost cloudless, but far behind them a bank of rain clouds, riding a pressure front was stacked up in a low wall out to sea. The setting sun washed these orange, pink, peach and crimson. Nearer to hand below them small apologies of wispy white and grey scudded past, each wearing a gentle veil of lilac and pink. But it was ahead of them, to the west that her eye was drawn. Land. Precious beautiful land, green and stretching for ever across the horizon. Low lying, it seemed to comprise a wide river delta and marshlands and flood plain. Beyond there was a hint of rising ground, a low range of hills lining the coast a little way inland. There were green fields and dark woodland and the smoky presence of towns. Never had she thought the smoke from factory chimneys could be so beautiful. But above the land was the setting sun, a pregnant burning orb staining the land below it, painting it with golden warm light and fingers of mysterious shadow. If she wasn't so concerned about their chances of living to see the night she'd have wallowed in the beauty of the world.

An instinct made her glance behind and look up but there was nothing there. She had lost sight of it hours ago. When they had first said their good byes to Dola and her sons, Sheeta had kept looking back, watching that green dot grow smaller and smaller as it lifted higher. At one point all she could see was a spark of blue as the sunlight touched and reflected off the crystal. And then nothing. Gone, too far for her to see or reach. She had strained her eyes for a long time, searching for the speck she knew was there. At times she thought she could see it but her eyes were playing tricks. With her feelings a muddle of relief that it was over and sadness that it was lost, she had sat down and tried to stay warm.

"Keep still."

He shifted his weight and the nose of the glider came about and pitched up and the far coastline tilted and slid over to their left hand as he brought the machine about and gained some height where a favourable air current allowed. Behind and above her the pink-red cloth wing rattled and fluttered, the air spoiling against its trailing edge, the flapping cracking sound reminding her of a ships sail as it tacked through the wind and the air rattled inefficiently against the loose expanses of canvas.

"Damn."

He cursed and shifted his weight a little to the left. The machine's nose slid over a fraction to port and the world's horizon tilted with it. The rattling sail of the wing was stilled and the air flowed smoothly again. Glancing up over his shoulder he moved his weight back a little and bought them a few tens of feet more altitude on this tack.

"Just keep still, right where you are."  
"Yes."  
"The winds are weaker down here, I'm losing altitude faster than I'd like. I probably gained only about three hundred on that last tack. Each time…uh," he grunted in effort as the wind pulled at the clumsy bucket of the craft, "I let her swing to port and gain some airspeed I'm losing too much height for the next tack to gain me much back."  
"Will we make it to land?"

He glanced down at the sea, then up at the land at two places, getting a bearing, down at the sea again. Even she noticed the pause.

"Sure, lots to spare. We might even get inland to a town."  
"Where are we?"  
"No idea. There's a port down there at the river mouth but I don't want to land among buildings – too dangerous. And the flat land outside the town could be wet - salt marsh or paddies. I'm aiming to get us to that rising ground. Keep still."

He shifted his weight again and the glider bucked and dipped and accelerated round to port in a gentle diving curve. The horizon swung from it's drunken left-tilt to near horizontal and the land seemed to leap closer. But so did the sea.

She couldn't help but watch him working, watch how he used his whole weight as a controlling part of the glider, joined with the machine. She realised her weight placement was critical to the craft's trim, her simply standing up and leaning on the cockpit wall must have had an effect on his ability to fly yet he'd said nothing. Even though the metal bulkhead of the cockpit burned ice cold against her leg, she kept still.

"How high are we?"

Again he checked his horizon and the sea surface below him, he gave no answer without considering their position. He gave no answer that wasn't careful and, she hoped, truthful.

"No more than 6000 feet now. And in case you were thinking that shoreline is about seven miles off."

She watched him chew his lip.

"So yeah, we'll make it"  
"I know we will. You're piloting."

Pazu carefully calculated their situation, seven miles was about 40,000 feet and they were less than 6,000 feet up. The estimate of their altitude he'd given Sheeta had been optimistic. Not a lie, no, he'd never lie to her but likewise there was no point in causing undue worry either. That meant he had to average a 12 per cent glide slope, about eight feet of ground covered for every foot of altitude he lost. By tacking up from time to time as he was, he was preserving a lot of height but that sent them crabwise against the coast and the distance covered was further. _No such thing as a free lunch_ he thought as he banked the cumbersome steel machine around again.

And he was getting tired now. And when the sun went down it would get even colder. And visibility was dropping. If he didn't get them over a suitable landing site soon he'd have to put them down in darkness which wasn't something he wanted at all, it would be hard enough to judge ground conditions as it was, but in the dark he could see their chances of a safe landing diminishing steeply.

Half the problem was this old bucket of a glider. It was never designed for the task he was asking of it. Built as a flying observation platform to be towed by wire hawser from the dorsal platform of the Tiger Moth, it was built strongly to resist the buffeting of repeated dockings and the strains of being run in and out on the ships power winch. Its speed would come from the mother ship, it wasn't built to actually fly, all it was designed for was remaining aloft on the end of a wire. The tough rolled steel bucket of the hull was perfect for its intended job, but as a proper flying machine... well, lets just say he'd flown better. Much better.

He braced himself for another tack.

He hadn't reacted to her comment, he'd allow himself the luxury of her congratulations when they were down. And alive.

"Coming about, nose up. Hold on."

The machine swung, tilted and flew, the sky around them flushed red and purple and ahead the land began to darken as the suns disc touched and then bit into the land, and the shadows in the lower lying extremities grew and flooded up the fields like ink.

Night was coming. He was running out of time.

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_2 March 2007 _

For author notes about Chapter One, please see my forum (click on my pen name)


	3. Chapter 2 : Landfall

**Chapter 2 – Landfall  
**  
Low now. And slow. Slower than he'd like. He always preferred airspeed, with airspeed he had more options, he could trade it for altitude or bearing and just do more things more safely. Even putting her into a bank now, at this speed would stall them. The proper response to low airspeed was to put the nose down and gain more, but they were at low altitude now as well, and had given up that option soon after they'd crossed the coast. Now they were almost out of options entirely and his choices became more limited with each minute that sweated down his back. The answer of course was to land. The question of course, was where? He'd not been cold up there at all, far too much to worry about and too much nervous energy being burned to get cold. He'd be cold when they landed and the adrenaline stopped flowing, but he'd worry about that when the time came. Providing he still had a head attached to his shoulders that was.

They'd made landfall three minutes ago much to her obvious and very vocal relief. She'd hugged him in nervous happy reaction and that had nearly been the end of them. The glider had pitched over to starboard as her weight shifted and he'd had to swing around hard to get them some speed and correct the bank. That had cost them a couple of hundred feet of altitude, but he hadn't said anything, nor had he minded. He had been just as relieved as she and would have done exactly the same in the circumstances.

But now the sense of danger pervaded them both, the sun had set and the dusk was deepening, the gloaming was thick and dense in the hollows of the land and in places, in the narrower valleys and little re-entrants against the hills, it was wholly dark. In fear, or perhaps for comfort, or perhaps simply for the warmth of contact, she held onto him tightly, arms around his waist, her front pressed against his back, looking around his shoulder. Her warmth and presence comforted him, calmed him. At least, if everything went badly wrong, they'd be together, living or dying, they'd be together at the end.

"Get the rope and tie us together, and secure a line to the rear of the cockpit. If we pitch forward on landing I don't want us thrown forward and out and the thing rolling over us."

She had secured a line to a cleat at the stern of the cockpit and passed it around their waists.

He'd been right about the coastline and the flat ground. It was wet, too wet to land on. They had crossed the coast at about five hundred feet with the seaport about a mile distant on their left hand. The beach had been a steep shingled bank with a dull, wide, dark salt water lagoon behind it. Beyond this had been a mile or two of salt flats, treacherous ground – half mud, half grasses with a myriad of narrow twisting channels that would flood with the tide. A place that he could have landed on given no other choice, but which they'd have had little chance of walking out of, especially once the tide came in. Inland of the salt marsh they had passed over a belt of woodland to find themselves coasting over a rural landscape made up of small fields bisected by narrow lanes and bordered with tall thickly built dry stone walls. The fields were small and those walls looked very solid so Pazu coaxed the glider on.

The ground was rising now which was good news in one way because the last shreds of daylight lay here on the rising slope of the hills, making the identification of a landing site easier, but it was bad news too because it stripped them of altitude much faster. He glanced down, on the higher ground to his left there were no dry stone walls and the slope seemed to be studded with gorse, tussock grasses and sheep.

Whatever it was going to be, it would have to be soon. He was grateful for her presence, her contact, it would help them.

"If I lean into a turn, or forward or back, lean with me. Slowly."  
"Alright."  
"Your weight will move a little after mine and help give us a slower manoeuvre, I don't want to make any sudden turns at this height."  
"Yes."  
"So please don't make any sudden moves."  
"I understand."  
"Hold on tight."  
"I will."  
"Do you follow?"  
"Yes, I'm with you."  
"Alright, here we go."

A narrow little valley was to their right, burrowing up into the hogsback of higher ground. A dirt lane led up it and Pazu saw a farmhouse there with lights on. No room down there. Walls, trees, livestock. And too dark. The higher ground to his left it was going to have to be. The sheep chewed and watched the craft stupidly as it flew alongside them, almost at their level now. His choice was made for him, it would have to be that slope, steep it may be but at least there appeared to be a covering of bracken and ferns. He only had to side slip to port a hundred feet and approach up the slope, up the spine of land between this valley and the next. He couldn't see over the ridge to the next valley – he hoped there was no steep drop off on the far side.

"Sorry sheep, I'm going to disturb your dinner."

He leaned a little forward and felt her press against him. The glider's nose pitched down, gathering speed, the last they would get. He called back over his shoulder.

"I'm going to bank left and right quickly – just a side slip so we are facing up that hill, then at the last moment lean back with me and we'll flare hard up into a stall. The plan is we'll almost sit right down with no forward momentum at all."  
"Sounds easy. Alright, let's go."

He leaned left and felt her move with him. The nose of the craft swung around, a sheep just below them bolted off into the dusk bleating in panic. They passed close over, almost through, the tops of trees on the slope of the valley. The higher ground was ahead and at their height.

"Lean right!"

The glider swung stiffly about facing up the hill, they had no airspeed to speak of now, the clumsy steel bucket wallowed and began to stall. The ground came up fast, very fast, sheep scattered, the cloth sail of the wing fluttered and chattered, there was no longer any lift, the air bled out from under them and they were falling.

"Back, back. Lean back!"  
"Yes!"  
"Hey!"

With a thud and a short scrape of crackling undergrowth the steel cockpit clunked down. The craft slid only a few feet before coming to rest upright and cleanly. Pazu turned around, Sheeta grinned at him.

"Oh, yes! What a pilot. Fantastic!"  
"Uh.."

Pazu felt odd. Sheeta's face changed from a wide smile to doubt, then uncertainty.

"What?"

They were moving, no, tilting. The heavy steel tail boom of the glider came down behind them, below them. Down the slope of the hill its weight lay well below their cockpit. The craft settled into the centre of gravity which now was behind the cockpit. The cockpit began to tilt. Backwards. The nose came up. Pazu leaned hard forwards onto the control column, Sheeta, understanding what was happening, pressed hard against him, trying to push more weight forward. But it was too little. Inexorably the tail boom sank down and the cockpit nose lifted and began to turn onto its back. The uneven slope of the hill caused it to roll to the right and the two occupants fell sideways with a jarring blow against the steel cockpit wall. The big bucket rolled over onto them upside down covering them. The contents of the cockpit fell out showering them with dirt, loose tools and equipment and the cloth floor mats, filthy with dried mud and dust. Sheeta feared the upturned steel bucket would slide down the slope with them trapped under it but it simply turned over and slid a few feet before coming to rest upside down against a gorse bush.

Sheeta lay still. The rope at her waist cut into her, stinging and hurting. Her eyes and mouth were full of dirt and it was pitch black. Pazu coughed and moved.

"Ow, my arm," she yelped.  
"Sorry. Where are you?"  
"Right there!"  
"Sorry. Can you untie the rope?"  
"Not with you on my arm."  
"Ah, sorry, wait."  
"Ow!"  
"Ah.."  
"And _that_ was my leg. OW! Oh, that really hurt!"  
"Wait, let me get off."  
"Ow! Pazu…?"  
"What is it?"  
"My leg. Oh, it really hurts. I think it's broken."

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_2 March 2007 _

_For author notes about Chapter Two, please see my forum (click on my pen name)_


	4. Chapter 3 : Toes

**Chapter 3 – Toes  
**  
It was pitch black under the upturned cockpit. He could hear her strained breathing, sense her teeth gritted against the pain. He held out a hand cautiously.

"Can you reach my hand?"  
"Where?  
"Here."

He moved it slowly in front of him and found something soft. He drew his hand back quickly, embarrassed.

"Sorry."  
"Don't worry. Here."

He found her. Their blindly reaching arms bumped together. She held on tight, much too tight.

"Right, keep still."  
"I'm not going anywhere."  
"I'm going to untie the rope. Which side is the knot?"  
"My left side, on my hip."  
"Alright. Please be patient."

A pause.

"Sheeta, you need to let go of my hand."  
"Sorry."

It took him a few minutes. Her knots were good. But eventually he was able to move off her and give her some relief. She sighed as the discomfort and pressure were removed.

"Uh, my back."  
"I thought it was your leg."  
"Something sticking in my back as well."

This was bad. When the cockpit had tipped up she had been underneath, and roped together he had landed on her. It might even be his fault her leg was broken.

"Let me lift you."  
"Ow! No! Hurts."  
"Sorry, but I have to move you off that. I think your back is across the cockpit rim. I need to look at it."

He remembered the heavy bolt heads around the rim. If her spine had landed on one of those, with his weight on top…

"I'm sorry Pazu…"  
"What for?"  
"I roped us together. It's my fault we're in this mess."  
"Don't be silly, it was my idea."  
"And you did such a beautiful landing too."  
"Not beautiful enough. I didn't take the slope into account. If I'd thought about it I would have realised."  
"It's done now, no use worrying."

He felt bad. It had been his fault. The rope and the landing. Maybe he'd just been over tired and made some silly mistakes, poor decisions.

He slid her around so her head was up the slope. Every time he moved her she moaned, but he knew she was clamping her jaw closed, without that the moans would be screams. The craft wasn't completely upside down and now that his night vision was working a small slice of light was apparent on the downhill side of the cockpit. Burrowing under it Pazu found the bracken here was dense and springy and partly pressed down. Like a dog, bottom in the air, he dug through it, pulling it aside with his gloved hands. He got his head and shoulders through and found that by twisting around onto his back he could slide out. He stood up in the fresh air. Night had come. The western sky still held a reddish cast but overhead and to the east stars were out. He recognised the Maiden and the Hunter constellations at once. He tried to think which moon would rise first and where. In summer and this far north it would be Tahro and quite soon over the ridge behind them which meant they would have some light shortly. Ptamos wouldn't come over the horizon until the small hours, three or maybe four. They'd have to make do with the light of the smaller moon. He looked at the glider. Apart from it being upside down it looked to be in fair condition, although how torn the wing was he couldn't yet tell. Hm, a rigid winged machine wouldn't have flipped over. He put his head under the gap again.

"I'm going to find something to put under the edge here and lever the cockpit up a little so you can get out."  
"I don't think I'll be going anywhere just yet."  
"We'll see. We don't know yet that it's broken."  
"It feels broken," a low sob came from inside the upturned glider, "I'm sorry Pazu."  
"Shhh, stop that. It's not your fault. Give me five minutes. I'll be right back."

He had bare feet. No matter, he'd have to find some scrap cloth later and put bindings round them, But here, on the ground it was a lot warmer. After a short walk across the slope he found what he was looking for, a boulder, a good size with a nice square edge. With an effort he lifted it and staggered back to the glider, dropping it near one end of the small opening. Then he went down the hill and into the small stand of trees they had cleared just before their final turn. Luck was on his side, within a few minutes he found a long and reasonably straight fallen timber, not too rotten. Carrying this back to the glider he levered the cockpit up and with his foot pushed the boulder under the rim, holding it up enough to make an entryway a little like a low cave mouth. Digging down and scraping with his hands he pulled away a gap in the bracken and finally there was a doorway big enough to get through while walking stooped right down. He went back inside. There was a little more light now. He had lost his knapsack somewhere on Laputa, he didn't even remember when, probably while he was chasing Muska, or at the end when everything happened... He rummaged around in the debris inside the cockpit, there had to be a basic supply kit of some kind for people on watch. Then he found something, a wrapped oilcloth bundle. In it were two candles and a box of matches. He took off his gauntlets and lit one of the candles. He turned.

Sheeta lay on her back, her face was drawn and pale and sweaty and her breathing came in shallow fast gasps. She was in a lot of pain, Pazu could see that at once.

"Which leg?"  
"Left. Near the ankle."  
"Right. First I'm going to roll you over on your right side and take a look at your back. Alright?"  
"Yes."

With a few drops of it's own wax he stuck the candle to the flat edge of a spanner. He knelt up and carefully slid the aviator's poncho up and off her.

"Are you alright with me doing this?"  
"Of course, just hurry up, this is agony."  
"Sorry, I'll be quick."

He pulled her shirt from the back of her trousers and dragged the material up. She was wearing some kind of vest under the shirt and he pulled this up too. Her skin was exposed. It was very white and very smooth. He lifted the candle closer and looked. There was a lot of dirt and sweat and across her shoulder blades a little to the right side a long purple green bruise and a deep abrasion. There wasn't any blood although the upper skin layers were well scraped. To one end of the bruise was a deeper indentation, he touched it as gently as he could and she winced.

"Mm, hurts."  
"Sorry, I'm being as careful as I can."  
"I know. You're doing fine. I'm just a silly girl."

The deeper mark at the far end of the bruise was where a bolt head had pressed into her. Just below her shoulder blade. She was so very lucky, her back had fallen between two of the bolts. He looked across at the rim of the cockpit. There was a rolled cloth covering around the rim that gave some protection but the boltheads were still there. He walked the gap with the fingers of one hand. About eight inches apart. He placed the span over the mark on her back. Damn, she was more than just lucky, this was a miracle. One bolt head had pressed into her skin just below the shoulder blade, an inch higher and her (and his) full weight would have landed her blade on it, almost certainly cracking it. The other bolt head must have pressed into the soft skin between two ribs on the other side of her spine although he couldn't feel the indentation, it simply wasn't there. Again an inch or two either way and she'd either have cracked a rib or worse landed her spinal column right on the bolt, and that could have crippled her. He found he was shaking, sweating, but he didn't know why. But he did feel thankful. He let his eyes look at her white smooth skin a moment longer then hurriedly pulled her clothing back down. He rolled her back over. She looked at him.

"Well?"  
"You'll be alright there, you landed on the rim of the metal, with some idiot on top of you. But it's just an abrasion. Although you'll have a lovely bruise there and I think it'll be sore for a few days. The skin is roughed up a little but you're not bleeding."

He omitted to tell her that an inch one way and she'd have a shattered shoulder and an inch the other and she might never have walked again. Pazu couldn't stop shaking, and he swallowed hard to calm himself.

"You're very lucky."  
"I know. You're here."  
"I'm just the idiot who got us in this mess."  
"And you're the idiot who'll get us out."

Despite her pain, she grinned at him. Feeling foolish he needed to be busy.

"I need to check your leg. Low down you say?"  
"Yes, the ankle I think."  
"Right, please try and keep still."  
"I don't plan on going dancing any time soon."

He smiled at her, if she could joke about it, things were not so bad. He eased her shoe off. The wide cut pink trousers she had made out of some of Dola's cast-offs had gathered ankles. He'd lost his knife on Laputa too, when he'd given it to Dola. He needed to get to a town and buy some replacement equipment. With no other option he bit through the cloth and stitching. His mouth brushed her skin. He paused.

"Sorry."  
"It's alright. I'm sorry I don't taste very nice."

He didn't agree, but he said nothing. He tore at the cloth and loosed the leg.

"Sorry, I'm ruining your clothes."  
"No matter, I can sew them again. Doesn't look like I'll be walking for a while, I'll have lots of time for sewing."

He carefully slid the loosened material up the leg, she gritted her teeth. He held the candle close.

"No bleeding. And no broken skin that I can see. If it's a break it's not a compound one. There is a little swelling above the ankle but not much. But no bruising either. Hm. It doesn't look like a break to me. Can you move your foot at all?"  
"No, I can't even feel it!"  
"Try moving it."  
"Can't. Hurts."  
"Please try."  
"Please, Pazu…"

He could feel the pain in her voice. He put out his hand and held hers. He squeezed.

"Please try. For me?"

He looked at the foot. It was wiggling quite happily as she turned her ankle.

"Pazu, I can't even feel it. I know it's broken."  
"Try wiggling your toes."

At once they wiggled, all of them. He smiled.

"Are you cold?"  
"No. You asked me that before we reached the coast."  
"I'm asking again. Please be honest. Are your feet cold?"

A very small voice.

"Yes."  
"Good."  
"What?"

He touched a hand to her foot. It was very cold. He slid her other shoe off and held her toes. They were like ice. He was worried about circulation now.

"The reason you can't feel anything is because your feet are almost frozen. We need to get you some better shoes, and some socks."

As well as boots for himself. The shopping list was growing. He gently pressed a hand to the swollen ankle. She winced and closed her eyes, threw her head back. Groaned.

"You know, I think it's just sprained. It just needs a good tight bandage and resting for a few days."  
"Are you certain?"  
"I'm no doctor but I think so, we'd see sprains and twisted ankles like this all the time back home."

There was a minute's silence.

"Pazu?"  
"Hm?"  
"What is it?"  
"Nothing."

He got up and crawled outside. Then he wiped his eyes, where she wouldn't see him. Home. He thought about home. He realised he missed the Boss, and Okami, and sweet little Madge. When would he go back? Would he ever? When he left with Dola and the pirates he thought he'd already decided he wasn't going back. There wasn't anything for him there. Yet it _was_ home, the only home he had. And what of Sheeta? Her home was a long way away, in the far north. Two opposite directions. Anyway, what would a princess do in Slag's Ravine? No, there was nothing for her there. And if she wasn't there, there would be nothing for him either. He stood for a moment and looked at the night sky. The cold grey-white crescent of Tahro had risen and the lower land toward the ocean was bathed in her pale light. He drew a deep breath, there would be other times to think about such things.

"Sheeta? I'm going to make a fire and try and find some water, we have no food but I can make us some tea. Are you alright for a moment?"  
"Yes, my ankle hurts like blazes but I'll be alright. Please don't be long though."

--I--  
---o-o-oOo-o-o---  
I I

Sheeta heard noises outside. He'd been gone a while. His head ducked back under the cockpit rim.

"Hey."  
"Hallo."  
"Alright?"  
"Yes, but sore. And very tired."  
"I've got some firewood. I'll get a fire going and boil some water."  
"What in?"  
"Isn't there a pan or something in there?"  
"I never saw one."  
"There has to be something, a tin, a lid, anything."  
"I don't think so."

He rummaged about in the tool locker, searched the floor. Nothing.

"Ew! You're wet!"  
"Uh, yeah. Sorry."  
"Why are you all wet?"

She put out a hand to his shirt.

"Urgh, you're soaking!"  
"I, er, took a bath."  
"Where? And in the middle of the night?"  
"In a stream. At the bottom of the hill. Is there a problem?"  
"Don't you think that's a little odd?"  
"Well, it was there and I was nearby and getting firewood…"  
"You fell in."  
"I did not!"  
"Yes you did, didn't you?"  
"I just decided that while I was there, I'd have a wash."  
"Fully dressed."  
"I took my clothes off and washed them too. It is summer you know, It's quite warm out there."  
"You slipped and fell in a stream."  
"Alright! Alright! So I fell in a stream."

She laughed, breaking into a fit of giggles. Pazu decided he liked that sound.

"I don't believe it, my hero, a boy who fixes motors on the Tiger Moth, who can fly Flaptors, and rescue princeses from burning towers, who can fight Muska and climb about on a castle in the sky… and he goes into a wood at night and… falls in a stream…"

The giggles became loud laughter. Pazu felt a bit silly, but, well, really he didn't mind. It was good to hear her laughter, at least her injuries weren't that bad.

"Alright, it's not _that_ funny."  
"Oh, it is Pazu, it really is! It's so funny! Oh... Oh, I'm sorry I hurt your feelings. It's just that, well, you having been such a fantastic person these last few days. And now this."

The giggles began again.

"Back's better then?"  
"No, but the laughing is better than the pain."  
"Well I thought I needed a bath. I stank. And it looks like we'll be spending the night here, so, well…"

The giggling stopped, she looked at him, in the candlelight he saw her smile.

"Even out here, in the middle of we don't know where, with a broken glider, and a broken princess, you still act the gentleman."  
"Well… you know…"  
"You decided to wash just so the smell wouldn't offend me?"  
"Yeah, well…"  
"You're such a good person. Thank you for helping me, Pazu."  
"And you, you know… you're not."  
"Not what?"  
"Silly."  
"Who said I was silly?"  
"You did. Earlier. When I was checking your back. You said you were a silly girl. I'm just telling you you're not."

She looked at him. His face was downcast.

"Pazu, look at me."

He did so.

"Thank you, you're very sweet."  
"Uh, it's nothing."

She smiled at him.

"How about the tool locker cover?"  
"Eh?"  
"Unscrew it and use it to boil water in."  
"Oh. Oh, yes. Great idea."

--I--  
---o-o-oOo-o-o---  
I I

Outside the cockpit the bracken and ferns grew thickly to a height of three or four feet. Pazu had cleared a space in front of their cave entrance scraping it clear down to the bare earth. It was here he had built a fire of timber from the nearby stand of trees and he boiled water in the dish-like tool locker cover. His tin water bottle was all they had to drink from so he made tea in it and they shared mouthfuls. Even without herbs or honey it was still the most delicious tea Sheeta had ever tasted. He had also found some blackberries and collected a hatful of them, so tea and blackberries made their dinner. Pazu had gently slid her outside on the cloth matting that used to protect the floor of the cockpit. He had then checked her ankle in the firelight, washed it gently and bound it with the small first aid kit from the tool locker – two bandages and a bottle of antiseptic paste, all used up in one go, but no matter, it was a good cause. The last of the paste he spread with his fingers on her cut and bruised back. He had had to take her shirt off and lift her vest up to the back of her neck to wash her dirty skin. Using a clean rag he'd found from somewhere he had wet it and wiped her whole back, washing away the dirt and sweat. He saw that she kept her arms folded across her front.

"Mmm," she had commented by way of a gentle moan, "that's nice. In the morning you'll have to show me where this bath of yours is. I feel awful."  
"Sure, I'll show you."  
"But turn your back and promise me you won't look."  
"But you can't walk on that ankle. I'll have to put you in and lift you out."  
"You'll just have to promise me you'll shut your eyes then."  
"Absolutely. I promise."

Later he picked up some of the fern fronds he'd cut down, made a crude brush of them and swept out the floor inside the overturned cockpit. The wing sail now formed a floor covering, beneath that were crushed ferns, fairly comfortable if a little lumpy. Pazu offered Sheeta the poncho to sleep under, he'd make do with the grimy floor mat and the oversized aviators jacket. It was a warm night anyway, he doubted they'd freeze.

They lay on the ground by the fire. It was late now, midnight almost, and they were both tired. With the wall of uncut bracken around their den it was a cosy place, a secret little hideaway. Pazu lay on his back and pointed out the stars and constellations.

"There's the Maiden of course, everyone knows her. And the Oxen. And over there, low down on the northern horizon by the trees is the Fawn."  
"And to the east of the Fawn is the Hunter, and east of _him_ the Wolverine and below _him_… hmm… the Lizard."

He raised himself on one elbow and looked over at her.

"You know them too?"  
"Yes, of course, although you use the western names, the ones I've picked up in the last year or so, the names of Numenaor. I know them better by the northern names, the tongue of Oistrakh-Auera. Peadlth-Or, Tho-Brwnweg, Maerth-Dhu, Al Bannir..." (1)

The names rolled off her tongue like music, like an ancient poem or dark ages saga, which if course was understandable as the names came from those days, days when the Laputans had lived aloft and never walked the earth. To them the earth was dark and formless and irrelevant, and the sky… well... the sky was their everything. They lived in it, they walked in it. It was… simply… them. Their music sang of it and their poems praised it and the gods who dwelt in it.

"…Oudsh-Tadlre, Beannoth, and, of course The Hearth." (1)  
"The Hearth? That doesn't sound like Oistrakh?"  
"No."

Sheeta offered no other explanation. Pazu wished for one but chose to let it drop.

"It's late, we should rest."  
"Hm."

He once again assisted her into the cover of the cockpit although she said she was quite warm enough and would like to lay in the entrance where the night air and the night smells could reach her.

"Sure, I planned to sleep outside anyway. I love the night sky. Sometimes at Slag Ravine we'd work a vein of ore all night because the train to the docks would be leaving in the morning and the more ore we could load onto the wagons, the better dinner we'd have in our bellies the next day. So I'd be in charge of the winding engine and would only have to run it once every two hours when the men changed shifts. So I'd lie awake under the night sky and think about things."  
"What sort of things?"  
"Oh, the usual things. What I wanted to do when I grew up, the big rich mine I'd own, maybe. Where I would fly my plane when I'd built it. The woman I'd marry, the kids I'd have."  
"Do you want a family? Children?"  
"Hm, sure. One day. Not yet though."  
"Why not?"  
"I'm not old enough yet. I want to see the world, have adventures."  
"Well, you've done that now."

He chuckled.

"Uh, suppose so. But I've not met the woman I want to marry yet."  
"Oh. Really?"  
"Well, I think we should sleep."  
"Yes. Good night Pazu."  
"'Night Sheeta, sweet dreams."

There was a short silence.

"Pazu?"  
"Hm?"  
"It really was a beautiful landing. Thank you."  
"No, a good landing is one you can walk away from. I seem to have messed this one up a little."  
"In the circumstances I think you did superbly."  
"Really? Thanks. But, uh, next time I'll do us one we can _both_ walk away from."

--I--  
---o-o-oOo-o-o---  
I I

"Pazu?"  
"Mmmm…?"

It was ten minutes later, and he was almost asleep. Drifting in that warm hazy twilight between waking and sleeping where his mind found it hard to grasp anything but he wasn't yet unconscious. A delicious warm twilight, like late summer evenings.

"My feet. My toes."  
"What about them?"  
"They're still freezing. It's these thin shoes."  
"Wait."

He got up, picked up the floor mat that was his mattress and laid it across the opening of the cave, part in, part out near her feet. He lay himself on it, his head inside the overhang of the cockpit, on the uphill side of the slope, and on his side facing her feet. He unbuttoned his waistcoat and shirt and wiggled toward her so her feet were touching him. He slipped her shoes off.

"Mind my ankle."  
"Sure."

He picked up one of her small white icy feet and slipped it into his shirt. He winced as the icy flesh touched him where he was hot. He got comfortable and slipped the little cold pretty thing into his armpit where his body heat was warmest. He did the same with the other foot, pressing it onto his chest. Laying on his side facing her he dragged the aviators coat over himself and pulled his workman's peaked cap low over his eyes.

"Night."

Sheeta curled her neck so she could see down her body and see his small bundled shape. Soon her feet grew warm and comfortable, the feeling came back into her little toes at last and they tingled. She wiggled them.

"Hm, keep still. Tickles."  
"I never thought you'd be the sort of person to be ticklish."  
"Well I am, now be still and go to sleep."  
"Thank you Pazu. And good night."  
"Good night not-silly girl."

------------------------------------------------------------------------------

_2 - 3 March 2007 _

_(1) The tongue of Gondoa, known as Oistrakh-Auera (or the singing voice) is something I am developing as this story goes on and Sheeta will speak more of it, often in times of anger or other stress. For now, here are some translations, a full English-Oistrakh dictionary will be put up on my forum and I'll add words to it as they are used in the story. There are several Gondoan words used in the movie if you look for them, and they formed the basis of this idea._

Al Bannir :: lizard with his skin, as in full grown  
Auer :: voice, speak, also something from inside the body as in showing feelings  
Beannoth :: young deer, fawn  
Maerth-Dhu :: wolf giant, wolf god or spirit, also the spirit of darkness, lies and night.  
Oistra :: to sing or call out, usually a happy feeling  
Oistrakh-Auera :: the singing voice, the tongue of Gondoa  
Oudsh-Tadlre :: spinning wheel  
Peadlth-Or :: running man (hunter)  
Tho-Brwnweg :: young woman (virgin, maiden)

_and, of course The Hearth. I'm not going to tell you about the Hearth yet, nor its Gondoan translation, it is however a very strong symbol for Laputans and there is a constellation named for it. Sheeta spoke this word in English for a good reason here, to be revealed later.  
_  
_For author notes about Chapter Three, please see my forum (click on my pen name)_


	5. Chapter 4 : Hurt

**Chapter 4 – Hurt  
**  
She opened her eyes. It was morning and there was sunshine and blue sky and birdsong. It was perfect, like something in a nursery rhyme. It was too perfect. Covering her eyes with one hand she shaded out the worst of the harsh light. Bright, it was too bright. She considered how she felt, her back was killing her, it was more sore than her ankle, perhaps because she'd laid on it all night. Her ankle hurt too. She rolled onto her side, to ease her back. But there was another discomfort too. Not her raw skin, not her pulled muscle. And however she lay down, or sat up, or rolled over, nothing could get her comfortable against this pain. And she didn't want to consider it right now, because it hurt so much.

So she went right ahead and considered it. Because it was her whole world now.

She lay there looking at the wall of ferns a few yards from her bed and the freshly lit campfire in front of her, a fire he must have prepared this morning when he'd got up. She looked at the space he'd slept in. Empty. He'd gone – for firewood maybe, or for food or to fall in that stupid stream again and pretend he cared about her feelings.

He was pretending wasn't he? He must be because _I've not met the woman I want to marry yet _of the things he'd said last night. Or rather the things he hadn't said. Last night they had talked a lot, more than any other time since they'd met. Even more than two nights ago when they'd shared the poncho together in the Tiger Moth's cockpit. But of course then she had been full of worry about Laputa and they had a lot on their minds. Last night was different. The adventure was over wasn't it? The magic and excitement and worry and fear that had brought them together. All over now. The reason they'd come together, was over. The battle was over. She had no idea what had happened to Muska after he'd staggered out of the throne room but she thought he must have been killed. He couldn't have got off the island, he had no flying machine and without the crystal and the machinery in the island's huge belly he could do nothing. He was either dead or trapped up there. He couldn't come after her anymore, and if by some miracle he could, there would be no point, Laputa would no longer be a means to dominate the world. So now, that fear of Muska gone, there was no longer that bond keeping her and Pazu together.

Which meant that last night they could have talked…

Of other things.

Of their plans. Of the future, of what they would do…

Together.

But they hadn't. She had tried to get a reaction from him _I'm sorry I don't taste very nice _but he'd not risen to her bait. She couldn't get him to say anything which gave her an indication of how he felt. She couldn't just come out and say it, could she? She was a girl. Girls didn't do such things. Girls weren't forward like that, only the wrong sort of girl behaved that way. Men made the first move, they always did. It was traditional. But she'd tried to lead him, to give him an indication of how she'd felt _you'll just have to promise me you'll shut your eyes then _but he had either been too dim to see her offer _absolutely. I promise _or he wasn't interested.

"No, Pazu, not _absolutely. I promise_ but _well, if it hurts that much perhaps you'd let me bathe you?"_

That was what he should have said, there was his opportunity to answer her. And he'd not taken it. And it was that possibility that he wasn't interested which made her hurt. Not cut skin or twisted muscles but deeper down. Inside. She put her hand to her chest. In _here_.

"Yes. Pazu, that's what I want. Bathe me. Wash away this dirt, these hurts. Bathe me _here_. Touch my heart."

But instead _you'll have a lovely bruise there and I think it'll be sore for a good few days _he was right about one thing. She would have a bad bruise. And it would be sore, but not just for a few days.

"Sheeta!"

Over the bracken she saw his head coming up the slope, he grinned at her, raised an arm. She didn't feel like grinning back. She didn't feel like seeing his face at all. She felt like crawling back under the cockpit, knocking that stone away, shutting herself inside and crying.

_I've not met the woman I want to marry yet_

Really Pazu? Is that so? Well I've met the man I want to marry, so it's my heart that's hurting.

Pazu. Please don't come up here now. Don't see me like this.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------

_3 – 4 March 2007 _

_For author notes about Chapter Four, please see my forum (click on my pen name)_


	6. Chapter 5 : Fishing

**Chapter 5 – Fishing **

He'd risen early, as he always did. Tending steam engines meant nights were never long. Firing up and oiling round the old Clunker always needed an hour, and the morning shift started at seven. So he wasn't used to lying in bed. Daylight in the harvest season came at four and by five he was restless. He shifted his stiff frame and felt her warm feet pressing against him, inside his shirt. He was at once embarrassed, awkward. That had been a silly thing to do, putting her bare feet there. Sure, it stopped the cold and may even have saved her real trouble with circulation problems later, but…

Dammit, there were better ways of doing it. Less… hm… well, anyway, just _other_ ways. He shouldn't have done that. He could have just wrapped his coat round them, so why do that? Idiot. You're going to give her the whole wrong idea.

He sat up, stretched, groaned at his stiff complaining muscles. He needed to wash. And do other things with his bladder and stomach that you don't do anywhere near a sleeping girl. It was daylight so this time he shouldn't miss his footing. Why was he such a clumsy fool around her? He seemed to have grown two left feet and a second tongue. A stupid tongue that only spoke stupid words. He needed some space. A wash, a fire needed making. And breakfast. One thing about him that hadn't changed was the size of his stomach. Oh, what he'd give for a fried egg right now.

He bundled the mat into the cockpit, covered her feet with the fleece lined jacket and strode off down the hill.

Boots. Priority number one. Do some casual labour for someone and get money to buy boots. Hm, lots of things to buy, he really missed his knapsack, he felt naked without all the useful bits in there.

He did the necessary things his body demanded, then gathered firewood and started a fresh fire. She was still fast asleep. It seemed princesses were used to laying in bed later than engineers. Or rather, he corrected himself, engineers' boy assistants. The poncho was pulled down and part of her neck was bare. He could see the cord she'd put the blue stone back onto. And her white skin.

Averting his eyes he padded off back down the hill. Priority one: boots. Priority two: breakfast.

He looked down the hill at the farmhouse he'd seen last night. A wisp of smoke curled from the chimney and in the yard he could see a woman drawing water from a pump. He glanced behind him up the hill. The reddish cloth of one of the glider's wing tips was visible, as was the column of smoke from the fire, the moisture hadn't yet all been evaporated from the green timber. No doubt the farmer knew they were there, he'd come looking soon enough.

--I--  
---o-o-oOo-o-o---  
I I

When you are orphaned at the age of eight you do one of two things. You either give up, collapse inwards and rely on others. An orphanage, or if you are lucky, a distant relative. Or you fight. You stand up and press on. There wasn't an orphanage in Slag's Ravine and while most of the township was his family, none of them were blood relatives and they were all in the same situation, working the ore to scrape a living (literally). Everyone cared, he was certain of that, but no-one had the luxury of giving him a bed or a free meal. So the first choice, giving up, would literally have meant begging and starvation. But having been down the mines almost since he could walk he at least had a skill and he had his fathers determination and commitment to press on in the face of difficulties. So he'd gone to work for the Boss and had picked up an affinity for mechanical things. He was lucky. Many children orphaned at eight might think that a strange thing to say but he knew different. Still only in his mid-teens he had experienced a lot, yes, it was experience of a small closed world, an inward-looking mining community, but he had developed a strong sense of self reliance, of dealing with people, of not being messed about, of working out problems for himself.

At the bottom of the ridge of high ground was the edge of the coastal plain. A wagon road ran along here between high walls and beyond was more farmland and beyond that woodland and the salt marsh. Beside the road was the stream. It ran between small trees and scrubby bushes and yes, there were places a person could bathe in daylight and not be seen by passing travellers. He'd mention it to her later. He didn't much care who saw him washing, but he thought princesses might prefer some privacy.

He rolled his trouser legs up past his knees and carefully stepped into the water, making no unnecessary motion. He stood completely still and quiet for a while. Yes, there they were, he thought a pool this size would have some. Fresh water fish, trout they looked like, basking in the sun just above the gravelly bottom. He'd learned this skill from Tobie, one of the boys who did odd jobs for Okami. You just needed patience and a good eye. He'd had some success in the past, and once your eye corrected for the refraction effect of the water's surface and you were fast enough, you could grab the fish. So he waited, still, silent, watching them basking.

He was not shy or hesitant. He'd learned that dealing with people was easy. He'd made the surprising discovery that many adults had real difficulties of their own. When he was a child he'd thought all adults were clever, and strong, and never cried, and could do anything. But growing up fast as he'd been forced to do in the last five or six years, he'd found that if you just pretended you were confident and knew things then adults would believe you. He wasn't manipulative, he'd found that being polite and helpful worked too, it was just that the discovery that some adults were struggling with life more than he was had shocked him. So gradually his childish ways had left him – his display of confidence had, over time, been replaced by actual confidence.

A fish was coming closer now, it lazily swam to the shallow warmer water where he stood. Any moment now… just a little closer fishy, fishy… His hand darted out and closed on cool squirming flesh. Yes! He pulled the small trout out, whacked it's head on a stone and returned to being still and patient.

His problem though was that his world was a world of men: his work, his dealings with Judd who ran the hot food canteen, Moergan at the hardware store, Eckhmer the blacksmith who helped him with repairs when the Clunker had one of it's bad days. And the miners. The only women he'd had any contact with were Okami who would help out with patching his clothes and dressing his injuries and Madge who was just a kid. There were some girls his age in town but they all went around in packs and giggled when they went past him. He had tried talking to them more than once but they either ran off or went pink and then laughed. He had no idea why. So he had problems, here. He was now responsible for a teenage girl. An injured girl, and not just any girl, but a princess. What could he, a crude miner, offer such a girl? He had little understanding of etiquette or how to act around girls. Yes, Sheeta was easy to talk to and do things with, but in that way he didn't get to know her as a girl. It was like Tobie and him out fishing, they acted like two friends, two boys. He enjoyed that but he knew there was more. He could feel it.

Oh, yes, another fish was approaching. Come on Mr. Fish, come to Pazu now… He made a grab but this time the trout skittered way. Damn. It would take a while for another to come to this noisy part of the pool now.

But when he was with Tobie he never felt like he did when Sheeta was around. He felt a strange warm feeling when she was near him. When he was with Tobie he never had the urge to reach out and touch the boy's hair. Or just sit and stare at his lips. With Sheeta it was different and he found it perplexing. Sometimes in the Red Cow Inn he would sit with the miners and they'd talk and laugh about things he didn't understand "buns in the oven" or "a quickie behind the tool shed". The men laughed at these stories but wouldn't share with him what they meant. Pazu knew that men and women got married when they were older and had children and that involved laying down in a bed with no clothes on. But after that he was clueless. He'd even talked to Okami about it once or twice but she'd just got flustered and suddenly very busy and shooed him out of her kitchen.

And it all came back to this feeling. He'd never felt it before. Ever. What troubled him was it was both nice and at the same time it hurt. It was like eating too much and something inside blocking you up so you couldn't rest. Or it was like a toothache but instead of a tooth hurting it hurt inside his chest. Why, when he liked Sheeta, did it hurt when she was nearby? He knew what love was, he'd loved his mom and his dad, but he couldn't measure that love against what the miners talked about when they said they loved a woman. Behind the tool shed. The love Pazu had felt for his parents had been a completely warm restful thing. Comforting, relaxing and mixed in with it were things like respect and an eagerness to please. The miners joking stories seemed to have nothing of that.

But when he was near Sheeta he felt something else as well and it worried him because it felt nothing at all like his fading memories of his mother. There was this unhappy hurting sensation but something else. Something even worse. He'd felt it last night when he'd looked at her back, and when his lips had accidentally brushed her ankle. And when her icy feet had pressed into his armpit. Especially then. And this morning, when he looked at her neck. It was almost a bad feeling, a wicked feeling, a kind of _dirty_ feeling, like he wanted to do something wrong to her. How could that be love? He'd seen his mom bathing some days in the tin bath in front of the fire. He'd seen a lot more of her skin than he had of Sheeta's and not felt this at all. Pazu sighed. He was confused. Maybe this was why he'd grown a second tongue and two left feet – because he was afraid of these feelings.

Another fish was approaching. He had to get this one, his legs were freezing and she'd wake up soon. Come on… come on… just a little closer… Yes! His hand darted out and a second small trout had a sudden and very bad but very quick headache.

And what about that conversation he'd had with Dola in his cabin the night he'd come home with Muska's three gold coins? That night when he'd felt that awful guilt at the realization that he'd been bought off. What had Dola said?

_"They threatened her so she tried to save you."  
"How do you know?"  
"Fifty years of being a woman."  
"She breaks her own heart to save her man – how touching."  
_  
He remembered that conversation clearly, and he'd remembered the feeling in his chest. It was the same feeling he had when she was near him, and yet then she'd been miles away. So that meant the feeling was nothing to do with being near her (although it was worse when she was) but happened when he thought about her. How could this horrible aching pain be the same emotion as the wonderful relaxed sensation he remembered from his mother's arms?

He put his thoughts aside and climbed out of the pool. He washed his hands and face. Down by the roadside he'd seen something he wanted, a cluster of woodland mushrooms and some wild fennel. He gathered these in his hat, then selected a stone from the dry walling, a large round nugget of flint. On his way back he picked the last few blackberries from the bushes by the trees and made his way up the hill. As he went up the slope he saw something long lying in the grass. He picked it up, checked it for strength and length. Yes, perfect, just what he needed.

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_4 March 2007 _

_For author notes about Chapter Five, please see my forum (click on my pen name)_


	7. Chapter 6 : Feelings

**Chapter Six – Feelings **

Sheeta turned her face to the ground and closed her eyes but it was pointless feigning sleep, he had seen her. And anyway, she'd have to face him some time. _Don't see me like this. _The simple answer to that was to not let him. Let him see her another way. She propped herself up on one elbow and smiled.

"Morning."  
"Hey, sleep well?"  
"Not too bad. But my back still hurts."  
"Hm, and the ankle?"

He began to lay down his cargo.

"I haven't tried putting weight on it yet."  
"Well don't, I don't want you hurting it more. We need to be traveling soon."  
"Oh?"  
"I need to go to the port and buy some things, all the things I lost over the last few days."  
"Well, I think it's a little better."

_unlike my heart_

"That's good. Breakfast?"  
"Well, actually," she found herself blushing, "I need to do something private."  
"Uh, oh. Um. I see. Can you stand at all?"  
"I don't know. Can you help me?"  
"I can carry you. Shall I take you to the stream?"  
"All that way? Can you do that?"  
"It's not far."

_his arms will be around me_

"If it's not too much trouble. I hate being like this. A burden."  
"You're no burden. Who said you were a burden? Don't be silly. Take the poncho off. Good. Now, sit up."

He squatted next to her, slipped one hand under her knees and the other behind her shoulders. She put her arms round his neck. He straightened his legs, leaned back, let her weight lie against his chest so he wouldn't overbalance.

"Alright?"  
"Yes."  
"Ankle?"  
"Fine."  
"Good. Off we go."

She weighed hardly anything at all. He was surprised. How could she be so strong and resilient and have run and jumped and climbed and flown and cooked and fought all these last few days and yet there be almost nothing of her? Sheeta looked down the slope, she preferred to watch where he was taking her, the alternative would have been to lay her head on his shoulder and she didn't want to do that. Or turn her head the other way and find that their mouths were inches apart. She didn't want that either, not right now. Feeling his body against hers was bad enough.

He lowered her so that she sat on a rock at the waters edge. He knew exactly where to take her, a place he'd noticed earlier where dense undergrowth hid the stream from the wagon road. He straightened up, took a step back.

"Pazu, don't go, I need you to help me."  
"It's not right for me to see you."

_why not? don't you want to? obviously not, if you don't like me why would you want to see me undressed? _

"I'm only bathing."  
"A boy shouldn't see a girl without clothes on. I mean, they should be married first. That's all."

Her heart gave a little jump of hope. But, no, he was just being nice, being a gentleman. What kind of a boy would agree to look on her after they'd only known each other so short a time?

"Turn your back then."

He did so, hands in pockets, kicking a tussock of grass. Behind him he could hear the sounds of clothing hissing as she took it off. There was a splash.

"Oh! Cold! You said it was warm!"  
"It was last night, but that was after I'd been in that cold cockpit all afternoon. Straight out of bed this morning I expect it will feel cold."  
"Brrrrrr… this is horrible!"  
"Be quick then. Oh, and throw me your clothes, I'll wash them."

The pink trousers, the yellow shirt and a white vest landed at his feet. He gathered them up and went a few yards down stream, around a bush and proceeded to wet the clothes and slap them on a flat clean rock, banging the dirt out of them.

Pazu's mind was turning over and over. He couldn't stop thinking about how she'd felt in his arms, how warm and how frail. He realized what a strong person she was, what she'd done the last few days was as dangerous and risky as anything he'd done for her, yet there seemed to be almost nothing of her. Where did she keep all that spirit and bravery? He could hear her splashing on the other side of the bushes, she began to sing snippets of a tune he didn't know. It was a pretty tune, but melancholy. He stopped and listened to the words but couldn't catch them, they sounded foreign.

Unable to help himself he looked up. Through the leaves and branches he could just make out the whiteness of her form. She had sat down in the centre of the pool and was washing her arms. She had lifted her arms and he could see… Feeling like an intruder, he looked away.

As he worked, rinsing and re-pounding the clothes he felt a terrible urge. It was frightening. It was the same thing he'd felt this morning, only this time it was stronger. That funny feeling, that odd, dirty feeling, a feeling of wanting to do something to her, something that wasn't altogether proper and right. It involved touching and it had got worse when he'd sneaked a look at her through the bushes. He shook his head to drive the feeling away and kept on working at the laundry. It couldn't work out, could it? How could it? If they traveled to her country she'd be met by her friends, no, _her subjects_, he corrected himself. The people of her town would welcome her back. She was their queen, technically their ruler. And him? He was just some dirty manual labourer, a workman. How could it work out? They'd thank him and be nice to him, maybe let him stay a while. But waiting for her there had to be a nobleman, someone her subjects thought suitable to be her husband. And like Muska, they'd insult him with offers of money and send him away.

Pazu stopped working. He stared down at the white vest in his hands. Before he knew what he was doing he had lifted it and slowly pressed his face into it. There was a hint of her scent on it.

_for heaven's sake, stop it!_

He slapped the vest back down and continued working. Forget it Pazu, she might like you and you might like her but if you go back to Gondoa it can't last, so whatever this feeling is, just bury it deep and get on with your life. And don't show it to her, if she sees it, she might think there's a future for the two of you.

"Pazu?"  
"Yes? Are you finished?"  
"Yes, and I'm freezing! Are you done with my clothes?"  
"They're clean but still soaking wet. I can hang them on a bush to dry if you want."  
"Uh, no, I'll put them back on, they can dry on me at the camp fire."  
"Alright. I'm bringing them back. Are you… uh, are you covered?"  
"Yes."

He stood up, wrung out the clothing one more time and stepped round the vegetation. She was sat back on the rock at the side of the pool, her back to him, hunched over, her arms folded. She seemed to have kept on a pair of white cotton bloomers or an underskirt or something similar. But the thin garment was soaking and he could see through it. He went bright red and turned his head away guiltily.

"My vest first please."

Keeping his back to her he held the vest out to one side, felt her take it.

_her skin. it's so white. so clear._

He cleared his throat, he seemed to have something stuck in it.

"Pazu, my back is quite painful. Would you take another look at it for me?"  
"Uh, are you sure?"  
"Yes, of course. I don't want the wound going bad, I can't see it myself."  
"Um, right. Er. I'm turning round, alright?"  
"Yes."

He didn't want to do this. Well, he _did_, because he cared for her and he wanted her to get well. But he didn't want to look at her again, he knew how it would make him feel.

Time moved in slow motion, he turned his body and his head. Her white back came into view. She held the vest against her front. He saw the shape of her, how narrow her waist was and how her hips flared out where she sat on the rock. He noticed her hair, the deep reddish brown mass, a funny lopsided shape where it had been damaged. She had taken her hair band off. Where she'd washed her shoulders, the hair had got wet at the ends and it lay in damp tangles on her back. Pazu felt his face turning pink again. _Sheeta, don't look round. Don't turn. Please don't see me like this, with this look on my face. _

Suddenly he had an inkling of what the miners in the Red Cow had been speaking of. Was this love? This hot, urgent, _aggressive_ feeling. He almost wanted to be rough with her, to throw her down on the ground. _A quickie behind the tool shed._ How could this be love? It still felt all wrong, all bad.

He crouched down behind her and lay the rest of the clothing down. He reached up a shaking hand and brushed aside some of the damp hair. It was thick and springy and even tangled and wet like this he wanted to put his face in it. He coughed and moved it aside. The bruise looked terrible, almost a foot long and curved like a crescent it went from under her right shoulder blade diagonally down to the ribs on the other side of her spine. It was turning yellowish now in places and where the skin was the most damaged there were small scabs forming. With a finger he gently traced the bruise, felt her bumpy damaged flesh. She shivered and let out a giggle.

"Ooh, tickles! Just let me know if it's alright, don't tease!"  
"It's fine," he said, marveling at the feel of her, "it looks fine to me. It should heal in a few days, but it'll stay sore. Try to sleep on your side."  
"Yes Doctor Pazu. Thank you Doctor Pazu."

Her giggling continued. He thought of summer, and birdsong.

"It looks good, Sheeta. Here."

He held out her clothes. She turned her head, reached and took them. He didn't let go and for a second he pulled one way and she the other. He didn't notice. All he noticed was her eyes. He'd never noticed before how clear and blue they were. He suddenly let go of the clothes.

"I think I saw some more mushrooms up here a little way. I'll go pick them while you get dressed."

He stomped off through the undergrowth until he knew he was out of sight. And he stood and waited, kicking his heel into the damp soil.

_no way can we go on like this, camping out. I can't stand it. when we travel I'll make sure we stop at inns and she has her own room. _

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_4 - 5 March 2007 _

_For author notes about Chapter Six, please see my forum (click on my pen name)_


	8. Chapter 7 : Breakfast

**Chapter Seven – Breakfast **

He carried her back to the glider and built up the fire so she could dry herself. She offered to cook breakfast. However, before she could, she would need a knife. He picked up the flint nodule he'd found and bashed it against the steel rim of the glider. It shattered and then he selected a good piece and chipped away at it with another part of the stone. Within ten minutes he'd made a passable knife blade from the dark glass-like stone. While he worked, she picked up one of his mushrooms and sniffed, peeled a little piece off and nibbled it.

"Are they alright?"  
"Yes, fine, ordinary woodland fungi, very good. You'd want to avoid the ones with the dark brown caps and pale spots though."  
"Do you know about things like that then?"  
"Oh, yes, a lot of our food at home is picked wild, we respect the produce of the soil and try to use as much of it as we can. I don't eat meat."  
"Really? Ah. Oh, I never knew. Uh, sorry, this fish is no good then."  
"Don't worry, I'll eat fish, if it's caught from natural streams and lakes. I won't eat meat from cattle or game that's bred for the purpose though, that's not natural. I used to eat wild animal meat but not any more. I just don't like it now."  
"I've never heard of anyone not eating meat before. I mean, do you get all the nourishment you need?"  
"Oh, yes, there's lots of goodness and so on in vegetables and fish. When I'm really, really, _really_ hungry I'll eat wild fowl but nothing else other than fish. I don't even like eating fish that's farmed, in carp pools and such like."  
"Well, you never cease to surprise me."

_Was that why she was so slim and weighed so little? Because she didn't eat properly?_

"Here."

He passed her the flint knife. She set to work cleaning the two fish and breaking up the mushrooms. Pazu, using another flint blade, got to work on the thing he'd found earlier in the long grass. Before long the mouth watering smell of a fish broth with mushrooms and fennel filled the air. Sheeta brewed tea in his water can and put the blackberries on the side on a piece of cloth.

"Breakfast."  
"Wow, this looks delicious."

There were no plates, no spoons, nothing. Shrugging they lay the tool locker lid that was their cooking pan on the ground and ate with their fingers, jokingly complaining when the scalding food burned them, laughing as they licked the delicious juices off. When they'd finished not a scrap remained. They ate the berries and drank tea, passing the tin bottle between them again.

"What are our plans now?"  
"First, go and speak to the farmer, apologize for nearly flattening his sheep. He may even have some work I can do to get some money. Then, get to that town and buy some bits and pieces, find out where we are and how far it is."  
"To where?"  
"Gondoa of course. I agreed to take you home."

She was pleased, he would stay with her. She hoped she could talk more with him and work out why he was acting so coolly.

"And then?"  
"Oh, one thing at a time I think."

He smiled at her, but she didn't see the smile touch his eyes.

"Present for you. I don't think it's your birthday but I thought it was something you needed."

He held up a wooden stick, it had a Y fork at one end around which he had wrapped, with twine, some scrap cloth and padding from the glider. It was a crutch.

"Stand up."

She did so. He placed the crutch to her left side and she tucked the fork into her armpit, it was a good fit.

"It's perfect Pazu. Thank you so much."  
"Uh, it's nothing."

Embarrassed he took off his cap and fiddled with it.

"This is the first gift you've ever given me. I hope there will be more."  
"Really, it's just an apology."

She became worried.

"What on earth for?"  
"That rubbish landing. I'm still cross about it."  
"Oh, Pazu, forget about it. Come on, let's go and meet our neighbours."

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_4 March 2007 _

_For author notes about Chapter Seven, please see my forum (click on my pen name)_


	9. Chapter 8 : Morwen

**Chapter Eight – Morwen **

They approached the farmhouse along the lane, but when they got close a dog started barking. The house was set back from the road behind a high walled courtyard, a wagon door in a stone arch opened onto the lane. The lower storey of the building was stone built, the upper was half timbered and rendered, and it had a thatched roof. There was a timber barn to one side and an animal and cart shed to the other, the whole complex forming three sides of a rectangle fronted by the enclosure wall along the lane. Pazu pushed one of the wagon doors and stuck his head round. The barking became louder and more urgent.

"Hello doggie, good doggie."

The barking became even more frenzied, more hostile. A pair of large grey wolfhounds were just behind the gate, Pazu didn't want to risk going in.

"Hello? Anyone home?"

Sheeta stuck her head around the door.

"Oh, hounds. Let me."

She pushed the door wider, gave Pazu her crutch and sank down onto her knees.

"Sheeta!"

She ignored him and he feared the dogs would attack, but they both came forward inquisitively, sniffing. A couple more barks, less sure now and they fell silent, sniffing Sheeta's face.

"Be careful," Pazu warned. He could bind sprained ankles but he didn't want to extend his surgical skills to facial stitches just yet.  
"Don't worry," she replied, "come here. Oh, aren't you adorable! What are your names then, hm?"  
"They don't have names. Them's working dogs and they don't like being petted neither."

Pazu looked up. A large woman stood across the yard in the house doorway. She was middle aged, big and red faced with a mop of flaming yellow hair held back in a band. Her hands were on her hips and in one of them she held what looked like a meat cleaver. Sheeta simply ignored the woman and continued to talk to the dogs making coo-ing sounds. She put her hand out palm upwards.

"And don't do that neither, he'll have yer hand off!"

Sheeta held her hand out, low. The big shaggy dog approached and sniffed it, then it gave her hand a lick. Fish broth juice was on the menu today. The huge dog licked again and kept licking until he could no longer taste fish. The woman seemed unimpressed.

"Well if he takes yer hand off don't say I didn't warn yer. Anyway, whaddyer want?"  
"Have you any work I can do please? We're travelling and need some money," Pazu asked.  
"Travellers, eh? Been a lot of travellers recently. More than I'd like to see. Fed up with the lot of you I am, tramping through the crops, breaking down the walls, two of your kind last week killed a sheep."

The woman glared at the boy's bare feet and the girls bandaged ankle, her crutch. The crutch looked brand new, these kids had clearly just made it, she doubted the girl was hurt. And no doubt the boy had taken his boots off and left them nearby. Such tricks didn't fool her, she was fed up with beggars.

"There's no work here, and no money neither in case you were thinking of comin' back tonight."  
"I'm very good. I can work all kinds of machinery, pick crops, paint and mend. And Sheeta here can cook and sew and, well, she's good with animals. _apparently. _We only need a little work and then we'll be off to town, we don't want to cause trouble."  
"I can do all the cooking and sewing that's needed round here, and we ain't got no machinery, so clear off, blasted beggars!"  
"We're not beggars," Sheeta spoke, "We're just travelling through, we lost lots of our possessions in an accident and just need to buy more. Please."  
"Dogs! Here!"

The two wolfhounds immediately left Sheeta and trotted over to the doorway.

"Sit!"

They did so, one to either side of the woman. There were a few minutes silence. The big woman regarded them suspiciously.

"Going to town you say?"  
"Yes."  
"Not away?"  
"Uh, no."  
"All the travellers what come through here are going away, over the hills. Inland."  
"Why?"  
"The situation of course, things is getting worse. It'll come to fighting soon."  
"Well we want to go away too as soon as we can," Sheeta offered, "we're going north, to Gondoa,"

Pazu kicked her good foot gently. In a pretence of helping her up, he leaned close and offered her the crutch.

"Don't tell her too much, I don't trust her," he whispered.  
"And I don't trust you two, neither. And my hearing's very good," the woman sneered.  
"I'm sorry," Pazu offered, "but we don't know this area and, well, you seem to have had problems with other travellers recently so I thought…"  
"What? That I'd gossip and tell people two strangers going to Gondoa were here?"  
"Something like that, yes."  
"Don't worry, we keep ourselves to ourselves in times like these, don't go wagging our tongues to nobody, 'specially them watchmen and soldiers."

The boy and girl exchanged a glance, she frowned a question with her eyes and he responded with a look of _don't know_.

"You. Girl. Walk forward, come 'ere."

Again Sheeta queried to Pazu with her eyes, but he motioned her to go. Sheeta took a few paces across the cobbled courtyard, struggling with the crutch and keeping her sprained ankle off the ground. She gritted her teeth against the pain. As she got close to the woman the two wolfhounds began to wag their tails and wiggle on their haunches, tongues lolling.

"Stay," the woman warned them, "Stop there. Now, you boy. Come over."

Pazu walked to beside Sheeta a few feet from the doorway.

"Alright, I don't think you is beggars or lyin' to me. But you is no way getting' to Gondoa."  
"Why?"  
"Borders is all closed is why. On account of the situation."

Pazu was burning to ask what the situation was but thought it prudent to keep his ignorance concealed.

"Please, at the moment all we want to do is get to the town to buy things. Camping things."  
"You's already damn well campin' Do you think'm some stupid country wench? You's up there on the sheepfold las' night, we saw yer."  
"Yes. Sorry. We had an accident and lost most of our possessions."

Pazu really didn't want to go down this line of conversation, he didn't want to mention Laputa and the Goliath and Muska and all the rest of it.

"You kids is not makin' sense, you know that don't yer? You's out campin', yet you say you's got no campin' gear. You camps up on the ridge in plain sight, and yer lights a great big fire las' night so's the whole world can see yer. Why yer don't camp down in a holler near the road and keep yerselves to yerselves I don't know. Do yer want people to find yer and come askin' questions?"  
"We had no choice," said Sheeta, sounding upset.  
"Whaddyer mean yer had no choice? Road not good enough for yer? Did you fall from the sky or something?"  
"Yes."  
"Oh, right, so now yer from the sky too. I've had some kids tell me some tall tales in me time but you two talk the biggest load of pig manure I think I've ever heard. If it weren't for the way yer talks and yer politeness and what have yer, and that you's really got an injured ankle, and _you_, boy's used to walkin' without boots, I'd get the dogs to run you out of my yard in a flash."  
"Oh, yes, so here you are, I daresay."

The two teenagers turned at the sound of the voice behind them, the two dogs raced past them and ran to the gate. A man stood there, he was tall and heavyset and wore grimy working clothes with a flat cap tilted back on his head. Over his shoulder was slung a shot gun, the breech cracked open. The dogs bounded up to him enthusiastically, barking and playing at his heels.

"D'ya know what, goodwife Morwen, that ain't no tent up there, it's a flying machine, looks crashed to me. And here, well, well, well, here it looks like we got us two pilots an' all."

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_4 – 5 March 2007 _

_For author notes about Chapter Eight, please see my forum (click on my pen name)_


	10. Chapter 9 : Situation

**Chapter Nine – Situation **

Offering to work was one thing, finding out their offer was accepted but that at the end of it there would be no money was another. Goodwife Morwen's husband was called Tanner and although it was he who swayed the conversation around to letting them help out, because of the harvest, and while he was the man of the farm, it was clear that she wore the trousers. The wolfhounds were hers and she would as quickly set them on him as on thieves.

"I'm tellin' you all now, straight, all three of yer, an' that be you'n'all Tanner, there's never harm in remindin' yer from time ter time, them dogs bite be worse than their bark. But watch yer ways as my bark be worse than theirs. Is me meanin' clear?"

Three heads nodded in unison.

They really had to come up with some kind of story to account for their sudden appearance in a glider in a land they didn't know. Telling the complete truth was out of the question. Pazu partly lied about their glider crash. It wasn't a complete lie as it did in fact contain a lot of truth but he carefully adjusted the sequence of events and changed the cause and effect in a few places. He wove a story about their travelling to Gondoa in a passenger airship to visit Sheeta's relatives when they were attacked by pirates and they'd escaped in a lifeboat. Sheeta listened to his tale and found herself impressed by his ability to tell a good story. He ought to give up mining and go on the stage, play a couple of trumpet tunes, tell a few jokes and then tell marvellous stories. She kept a poker face, carefully appearing upset at all the right places.

Yes, they were going to Gondoa (but not at the time they were attacked); yes, they were in an airship (but they had been the pirates, not the innocent party); yes they had been attacked (but by the Goliath and not by pirates; although it had been Sheeta who had been attacked by Dola's gang some time earlier); and yes they had escaped in the glider, only it wasn't a lifeboat. The two elements Pazu kept hidden were Laputa and the presence of the army and the government's interests as represented by Muska. Morwen's earlier mention of soldiers and a worsening situation led him to think that the military were best left unmentioned. As was the fact that Sheeta was royalty. Mm, no sir, no need to mention that at all.

"What be this airship?" enquired Tanner.  
"The Albion," Pazu smoothly replied, naming a railway engine that worked the mineral line in the Ravine.  
"Niver heard of her."  
"She wasn't a big vessel, and was quite old," Pazu squirmed.  
"Hm."

Tanner didn't sound convinced.

"Well, then, young Pazoo, lets not worry about the poor old Albion now. Ye can help me with the harvest. It's root vegetables mostly; carrots, potatoes, sugarbeet, parsnips, some beans oh, and the two top fields of barley. Ye and me together it'll take us about a week. That be alright with yer?"  
"Yes, thank you."  
"Don't be thankin' me yet, lad, be thankin' me when we's done. It'll be hard work, and I won't put up wi' no slackin' neither. Long days, work hard, earn yer keep. Are ye understandin' me now?"  
"Yes, sir."  
"Good. And goodwife, what have yer for Miss Sheeter to be doin'?"  
"Well now, that's not so easy. What with you and that ankle of yours. There's the cows to be a milked, hens eggs needs collectin', the laundry, although that'll be difficult fer yer. But yer can help me with the meals, I'll be cooking' fer four now instead of two so if yer pulls half of that work off me, that'll do. And the same goes for _yer _too, girly. I won't be puttin' up with no time wasters in my kitchen. And the hounds won't be putting up with them in the yard neither."  
"I understand Morwen, I'll work hard."  
"Just yer see that yer do."  
"And when we're all done, you an' me boy, will take the wagon to town and sell to the market traders. We keeps a fair bit back to see us through the winter but we won't be comin' home wi' no sacks o'cash I kin promise ye that. I has to buy seed for nex' year, and animal feed fer the winter, and pay for repairs and such like. Some cash has to be kept back for 'mergencies too. But when we's all done what I'll do is take ye to the hardware store and ye can buy yerself yer supplies and such. And you, miss, hm, looks ter me like yer could use some better clothes. And o' course the two of ye gets a roof over yer heads and meals. I can't offer yer more than that."  
"No, that's very kind of you, thank you very much."  
"As I said, lad, don't be thankin' me before we's done, ye might not stand the pace."  
"Do you do this every year – on your own?"

Tanner and Morwen shared a look. Morwen looked away. Sheeta caught that look. She had seen it on her grandmother's face. It was a look of sadness. A sadness a person carries with them when death has passed by.

"No lad, this year be different. I usually have help but not this year."  
"Mister Tanner," asked Pazu, thinking a change of subject was needed, "can I ask, where _are_ we exactly?"  
"My word, lad, ye have got yerself lost now haven't ye? Did I hear ye say you wuz from Slag's Ravine? Well this is Marinaer, ye must have heard of us?"  
"Oh, yes, Numenaor's to the south of here, across the Sea of Neb."  
"That be it. And the port just up here a way be Porthaven. Not a big place mind but see the thing is the fleet has a squadron o' battleships based there which is why peoples is worried."  
"Why are they worried?"  
"On account of the situation o'course! Have ye not heard of it down Numenaor way, lad? You lot are alongside us in this mess after all, what with your King dependent so much on our coal. It be the Restormellians who be causing all the stink. Them coal mines up on the north border at Greycastle. Them's disputed territories see? We runs them mines right now – huge mines, enough good coal down there to fill every hearth and furnace and warships firebox for a hundred years they say. But its right on the border wi' the Kingdom o' Restormel and there's been this dispute bubblin' away some time now. And peoples is thinkin' the politicians is a bored of talkin' now and will be gettin' their armies and fleets mobilized. So what with the battle squadron at Porthaven, the place has become a target. So peoples is a leavin' and that's why goodwife Morwen gave yer such a warm welcome earlier. We've had tae put up wi' lots of travelers comin' through here in recent weeks, people gettin' away and going inland. And o' course once groups o' peoples gets on the move they gets this idea in their heads that the law don't apply to them no more and they starts tae cause trouble fer us farmers."  
"I know Restormel, it's the Kingdom south of Gondoa," Sheeta interrupted, "Is that why we can't get to Gondoa from here?"  
"That be right, miss. No one be allowed across the border between here and Restormel now, it's been closed a week at least."  
"We never heard of this. We were flying then," Pazu observed aloud, mostly for Sheeta's benefit so that their story would hold up.  
"Can we get across any other way?"  
"Ye can try a ship, if ye kin find a captain that'll take yer," Tanner suggested, "But Restormellian gunboats be patrolling their coast too, some of 'em come south and interfere with our fishermen, some days, which means the King of Marinaer has some cruisers operating off that north coast now too, and a couple of airships. 'Tis all gettin' very messy up there children, ye could be sunk by either side, people is so nervous, I would'nae wish tae try it."  
"There is another way," Pazu said, looking at Sheeta. She knew at once what he meant, "Mister Tanner, can I bring our glider down and store it in one of your sheds, please? I may have a use for it later."  
"Ye means the lifeboat. Albion's lifeboat."  
"Uh, yes, the lifeboat."  
"Ye called it 'our glider', lad."  
"Uh, did I?" Pazu was sweating. _Damn, that was a stupid slip._

Tanner gave him a long careful look.

"Aye, ye can keep it in the north end of the cart shed, there be space there. But if ye leaves and ain't back in a month, I'll claim it as me own and sell it. So yer gets a month free rent. Alright?"  
"Yes, I understand."  
"But ye know lad. This situation could get bad. It could come to war. If'n all ye's doing is goin' tae see young Sheeter's relatives, wouldn't it be best to cancel yer trip? I mean," he again looked hard at Pazu, and the boy became more nervous, "'tis none of my business, but it seems ye should stay well away from the border until things calm down."

Pazu had no immediate response to this eminently sensible suggestion. He glanced at Sheeta. Her face was a mask, no emotion showed there.

--I--  
---o-o-oOo-o-o---  
I I

Pazu kicked himself. He'd gone down the garden to use the latrine shed. Sitting there, thinking, as you do, he discovered that as a liar he was useless. He'd found in the Ravine there was no point lying to anyone about anything. The township was such a close community that gossip would get around faster than any story you made up to contradict it. So he had discovered early on that honesty paid off. Or rather, that lying didn't, because sooner or later it came back to bite you. The fanciful tale he'd related to Tanner and Morwen about how they had come to crash land a glider in their sheepfold was the only lie he'd told that he could remember. The thing was, even though he knew Tanner knew he was lying, he simply couldn't tell them the truth. It was too risky.

--I--  
---o-o-oOo-o-o---  
I I

"Morwen?"  
"Yes, Pazu?"

It was a little later and Tanner had taken Sheeta out in the yard to show her the cow shed and the hen coop.

"About where Sheeta and I will sleep. Well, we aren't married. She and I are just friends. I'm just escorting her to Gondoa, for her safety, so, um, it wouldn't be right for us to share a room. I know you said you had only one room empty, so I think it would be best if she slept there and I can sleep anywhere, down here in the scullery or in the barn."  
"Well, if you just be friends she kin have the bed and you the floor. Seems alright to me."  
"Oh." Pazu looked at his feet.  
"Be that a problem for yer?"  
"Well, actually," Pazu was turning pink, "I do quite like her and she likes me, and, well I don't think it would be good for us to share a room. I wouldn't want us to be, uhm, _tempted_, if you know what I mean."  
"Has yer asked her te marry yer yet?" she smiled. She was quite a handsome woman when she smiled.  
"Marry her?" Pazu was shocked.  
"Oh, I knew you two was in love, the moment I saw yer. It's written all over her face and mostly on yers too."  
"It is…?"

_where? show me! what does it look like?_

"But I understands, Pazu, if yer don't want ter put yerself in the hands of _temptation_, if yer plans ter marry and such and wants ter keep yerself a _veergin_," she emphasized the word heavily and gave him a big wink, "then I'll find somewhere for yer. How be that?"  
"Er… yes… thank you. I think that would be best."

_what on earth was a 'veergin' anyway? and how did he go about keeping one to himself? _

Pazu knew it wouldn't be best. He knew it would be awful. The minute he told her he knew it would be a disaster. He didn't want to sleep apart from her any more than he knew Sheeta would be upset when she found out, but he thought about this morning and that powerful unwanted feeling he'd had, and knew that if her saw her unclothed again, or even in just a vulnerable situation - such as asleep - he felt he wouldn't be responsible for what might happen.

--I--  
---o-o-oOo-o-o---  
I I

"You said what?"  
"I just thought it would be for the best."  
"Oh, you did, did you?"  
"Yes. I know it's not an ideal situation…"  
"Not ideal? _Ideal?_ What on earth does that mean? Of course it's not ideal!"  
"Ah…"  
"Yes, so you should 'ah', you should be sorry for yourself. Pazu, what's the matter with you? We spent last night together, and most of the night before that, in the glider as well, and before that, we… well we've been through so much. At the fortress, when you rescued me. I've never seen anything like it, I felt so excited, I thought we were perfect for each other. And on Laputa, at the end... Pazu I thought we were...," tears welled up in her eyes, "Since we landed, you seem to have changed. You're acting so different. Tell me what it is."

Pazu looked uncomfortable, he couldn't meet her gaze. They were outside in the lane a little way from the farm and it was dark now. He had spent the day making trips between the glider and the cart shed, dismantling it and dragging it in pieces into storage. He had salvaged anything of use, all the tools, and various other bits and pieces. Sheeta had spent the day sat in the yard in the sun, Morwen's two hounds laid out contentedly at her feet. She'd sewn together a knapsack for him from some of the canvas sheeting from inside the cockpit. She had done a lovely job as well, there were four inside pockets and a small compartment in the cover with a button fastening so he could keep small things like coins or a compass in there, and she'd used a bone toggle on the flap to close it. She felt so pleased when she'd finished it. It was in the kitchen now, she had planned to give it him as a gift, as a thank you for her crutch. Now she wasn't sure what she would do with it.

He sat down on a big stone at the roadside. He patted a space on it next to himself.

"Come and sit."  
"No, I'd rather stand, thank you."  
"Your ankle needs to be rested."  
"I'll rest it tonight, in bed. There'll be plenty of room."  
"Sheeta, please."  
"Don't 'Sheeta please', me Pazu, can't you see how unhappy you're making me?"  
"If you would give me a chance I'm trying to tell you something."  
"Well spit it out, then I can go to _my_ room."  
"That isn't making it any easier."  
"It wasn't intended to, Pazu. Can't you see? How upset I am, I thought we could really get to know each other on this journey."  
"We will. I want to. But I can't sleep with you. If that's what you wanted."  
"What sort of girl do you think I am? But you can share a room with me can't you? I'm not that obnoxious am I?"

_what had he said? 'sleep with you' - that's what he'd meant, to share a room. had she thought he'd meant something else?_

Pazu put his head in his hands. _why are girls so hard to talk to? it's like another language, they twist and turn everything against you._

"Sheeta, let me speak."

She stared at him, eyes wide, nostrils flaring.

"Go on then, but be quick, it's nearly time I was all tucked up in bed like the little girl I am."  
"I like you a lot, Sheeta. Lots and lots. A very big lot. And...," he trailed off.  
"I like you a lot too. Get to the point."  
"Sheeta, I'm sorry, I don't know how to say this. I've never known a girl before. I don't know what to do."  
"Well my first piece of advice is don't annoy her!"  
"What's the matter with you? Do you want me to grovel? Is that what you want? To throw myself down in the road at your feet and say sorry? To go back to Morwen and told her I made a mistake and we would rather share a room? Hm?"  
"It wouldn't make any difference. Talk to me again when you've grown up, Pazu."

She turned and hobbled away up the lane. He called after her,

"How can I talk to you when you won't listen?"

She kept going until she'd reached the farm gate. She turned, and shouted,

"Pazu _rom_! How can I listen when you won't talk to me?" (1)

She went inside. The wagon gate slammed closed behind her. Pazu picked up a stone out of the dust in the road. He played with it for a moment, bouncing it on his hand. Then in disgust he hurled it at the wall opposite. It pinged off and vanished into the night. He stood up, stuffed his hands in his pockets and turned down the lane away from the farm. He needed a long walk. And a long think.

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_5 - 6 March 2007 _

_(1) "rom" in the Gondoan tongue is a warning to stop or shut up. It is insulting too and is part of a longer curse that is the greatest insult possible. "Rom" is often spoken instead of the full curse and usually honour requires that weapons be drawn once the full curse is uttered, or at the very least physical violence will follow. _

For author notes about Chapter Nine, please see my forum (click on my pen name)


	11. Chapter 10 : Barley

**Chapter Ten – Barley**

It is difficult to say who was the more surprised. Pazu went up the lane the next morning full of confidence in himself. Arrogance even. He was a miner. Mining was hard work and he'd done it for as long as he could remember. As a small boy he'd crawled on hands and knees pulling the ore carts along the rails that led along the drifts to the working face, hauling the empties in had been easy, bringing the full ones out had been the hard part, he'd worn a special harness that fitted his shoulders, like a horse. The harness distributed the pulling effort to his shoulders, his chest, his small muscular centre rather than his arms. Pulling those carts had been almost all he'd known until the age of six, he knew nothing else and so he'd not minded. It had been hard work and he'd sometimes cried, but around him everyone else worked hard as well, some of them cried too, even grown men sometimes. So when he needed to, Pazu had cried with pride because he knew it was a necessary thing, worn like a badge. To him crying wasn't what babies did, it was a right, and men who cried did so because their struggles had earned them the right to do so.

As he grew older and took more interest in what his father did, his keen mind had become aware of a life above ground where the steam engines worked, the trains ran and the pumps spewed out the black mine water. His father had built his own flying machine and had a dream of his own and Pazu, in the last years he'd known him, had been drawn into that dream. The dream of flight. The dream of Laputa. He'd got to know the Boss, and the Clunker, and found that working with steam engines might be less tiring than mining but it was more dangerous. Burns and crushed limbs were common among the engineers and Pazu had quickly learned to respect machinery.

So when it came to farming he thought it would be easy. It was just gardening on a bigger scale wasn't it? It took him most of that first day to find out that mining, operating steam engines and farming had a lot in common. They were all damn hard work and damn dangerous. A steam engine might scald the flesh off your bones and a mine might crush your leg in a rock fall but a scythe used wrongly would take off the leg of the man next to you, or later in the week he realised that reaching too close near the blade of the turning plough that lifted out the potatoes could get you caught and dragged under it. If you came out the other side of the turning plough still alive you were unlucky, dying under it would be a far better and quicker end.

Pazu, arrogant that morning, ended the week a wiser and humbler boy.

Tanner had plenty of misgivings about these two kids, but mostly about the boy. The girl seemed to be under his spell. Goodwife Morwen had told him, late last night, about her conversation with Pazu, and it was clear the girl was in love. Nothing wrong in that, he'd loved Morwen at that age. She seemed to be drawn along behind the boy, he was the leader of the pair. Sure, he was still young and ignorant about lots of things but his natural desire to protect was there and the girl saw that and fell under the boy's spell. She would go where he went, do what he said, follow where he led. So he was the key to this pair, know him and he'd know them both. Problem was, as Tanner saw it, Pazu didn't know where he was going. To Gondoa, yes, but inside himself? No. Clueless.

The fact that the girl was so obviously in love with him and he just didn't seem to see it was one of the odder things the older man saw in Pazu.

Tanner was just a farmer and his world was a farmers world, but he knew the regular airship runs and he'd never heard of the Albion. He made a mental note to talk to his mates in the Fisherman's Rest next time he went to town. Air pirate attacks were not common against passenger vessels, they usually chose to attack cargo freighters because there were fewer crew and more valuable goods, so passenger attacks always made news. If the Albion had been attacked, Porthaven's fishermen would know about it. Or the Porthaven Bugle would know of it, or if that provincial paper didn't then certainly the Kingsbury Times would. Tanner, however, kept these things to himself over the next few days. He held back, and wondered about Pazu.

Because, as it turned out, of the two of them, Tanner was the more surprised. He knew what the day would be like. They'd start with the barley in Big Top Field. Working with scythes, and binding and stacking the crop into stacks (called stooks), it would take the two of them all day he thought. Tomorrow they would cut Small Top and the third day gather and thresh and store the seed in the big wooden bin under the roof of the barn. It would lay there drying until the end of the week. The last job was to run the seed out of the drying hopper into sacks, bag it, label it with the buying merchants stamp and stack it on the cart. It would go to the sidings at Porthaven station to be loaded onto a railway wagon bound for Kingsbury. He sold all his barley to a Kingsbury merchant and he got good prices for it. The barley was the crop that kept them alive, put food on the table and re-thatched the roof. Tanner was always happier harvesting the barley first, not only because it was the only crop that needed to dry but because once he had that in the drying bin, excepting some calamity such as a fire, they were insured against another year.

So this would not only be hard work, it required technique as well, working a scythe looked easy, you planted your feet apart, gripped the handles and swung from the waist in a smooth regular crescent moon motion, taking a half step every two or three swings as the crop fell before you. Easy. Except that with all specialist tools that had developed over centuries, while the basic moves looked simple, to use a scythe efficiently took a lot of practice. Sure you could go at it in ignorance and try the brute force method but a man would be exhausted in an hour and useless after two.

Which was why, after they had started at six that morning and stopped for breakfast at half nine and resumed at ten, Tanner stopped working for a moment and watched the boy. His technique was raw and stiff, he hadn't quite got the smooth flow necessary to make the most of the body's energy but, if truth be told, he wasn't half bad. And he certainly wasn't like Tanner's other hired hands, going at it with sheer muscle and tiring himself out in the first hour.

"Hey. Water?"  
"Uh, thanks."

Pazu gulped down the cool liquid and wiped his forehead on his sleeve. He looked behind him. A wide lane lay along the edge of the field, two passes (known as 'strides') wide, the fallen barley in swirls and untidy heaps, awaiting stacking which they would do when they reached the far wall and worked their way back down the strides.

"Not bad. Ye done this afore?"  
"No. Does it show?" he grinned  
"No, it doesn't. An' that surprises me. Ye ever watch a field o' barley bein' harvested?"  
"No. I don't think I've ever even seen a field of barley before."

Tanner scratched his head.

"Hm. Come here, let me show ye somethin'."

Tanner stood behind the boy, his big chest pressing up against Pazu's smaller back. The farmer's thick arms came around him and he lay his hands over Pazu's on the scythe's handles.

"Swing fer me."

Pazu did so, a few times.

"Alright, now swing and walk forrad, like yer was cuttin'."

Pazu tried this and Tanner moved with him. They reached the standing barley and Pazu began cutting.

"Now, wait for me word."

As Pazu finished one swing, Tanner said,

"Half a pace with yer right foot… now!"

Pazu paced. The scythe swung again and the barley fell.

"Now, one cut, two cut and on the next backswing one half a pace with yer left foot… Now. There. Ye see?"

Pazu did see, by taking the half step as he completed a swing onto the other side, the inertia of the weight of the scythe as it ended its swing actually picked up his foot a little. If he coincided the half step at that instant, he found that almost all the effort of walking forward was made for him, by the energy already invested in swinging the scythe. In effect he could move down the stride for free. Now he saw why Tanner cut so energetically, the more energy you put into the swing, not only did this give your blade more speed and therefore made it cut better but the inertia was greater and Tanner could move down the stride with practically no effort at all. Providing you kept co-ordinated and compensated for things like the slope of the ground, the only effort you burned was in your waist and shoulder muscles and hands.

The two of them resumed work and by lunch time they had well over half of Big Top Field cut. At this rate they would finish and stook the crop early.

--I--  
---o-o-oOo-o-o---  
I I

They did reap Big Top early, and they did stook all the barley in it. Tanner made it quite clear to Pazu that he was a happy man that afternoon. With the sun beginning to settle behind the hill and the heat of the afternoon still raising dust at their feet, they set off back down the lane to the farm.

As they were walking, Pazu felt something. He was walking quietly, a mood of warmth and tiredness was over him and his muscles ached, but he was happy. He'd done a good days work and he knew Tanner was pleased with their progress. He looked at his hands, they were red and a little blistered. As he turned them over and looked at his knuckles he suddenly felt that sensation again. The sensation he'd felt when Tanner had stood behind him and his big arms had come round him and the man's hands had rested on his. He had felt the man's chest against his back and had even smelled his sweat, it was neither a pleasant nor an unpleasant smell, it was just the smell of a man working. But Pazu remembered that smell and the feel of hands like that…

- - - - - - - -

He had been six years old. He had gone into his fathers workshop to take him a cup of tea. The man had been working on his flying machine. It was the one he had flown when he'd taken the photograph a year earlier. Adam, the man who had been with him that day, that fateful day of the photograph, was working in partnership with him and they had rented a small hangar and were improving their vessel. The small boy had gone in and stood in awe as he looked up at the long cigar like gasbag, the many hanging guide lines and the large polished wooden airscrew.

"Here he is! Here's my favourite tea boy! Come over here Pazu, I've something to show you."

The boy had gone over to where the man stood on top of a set of low wooden steps, bending over into the open control gondola of the airship.

"Put them teas down boy and scoot up here. Come on!"

Pazu had climbed the steps and his father had picked him up, swung him around and dropped him into the wicker pilot's seat.

"Now, here's the safety strap that goes across your lap Pazu, so when the ship banks your dad won't fall out. That there is the airscrew pitch crank, you don't need to worry about that one. But here," his voice glowed, "you'll like this. Take a hold."

The little boy put out his hands and held the wheel in front of him, a wooden disc with the centre cut out and the rim wrapped in padded cloth.

"This is what steers your daddy's airship. Turn it that way to go left and this way to go right. Look behind you."

Pazu had looked and as his little pink hands turned the wheel he saw the big tail fin swing from side to side. A huge thing it was, fifteen feet or more tall, bigger even than his father (and he was a giant). Pazu was excited that his small hands could turn a little wheel and yet make such a big thing move. He giggled and swung the wheel harder.

"Whoa now, not too hard young man, we don't want you to throw your daddy out if you bank too hard."

And his father's big hands had come round him and rested on his little ones and his fathers big presence had been close to him, that warmth, the smell that only his father had…

- - - - - - - -

Years later a teenage Pazu was walking down a dirt lane hundreds of miles away in a country called Marinaer when that memory flowed out of nowhere and broke over him like a sweet wave. The boy stopped walking and as the wave eddied around him and ebbed away it left him wet. Wet in his heart, a damp aching sorrow and a wetness on him, on his lower eyelids and threatening to trace silver lines down his dusty cheeks. But a man only cried when he had suffered and been hurt through the effort of his own labours. A man didn't cry unless he had earned that right. And today had been a good day, and he lacked that right to cry. So Pazu put aside the aching hurt in his heart that the memory of his dead father left there, wiped his sleeve across his face and sniffed back up his nose the last of the wetness the wave had left behind.

_dad  
_  
And he continued homeward down that dusty late summer lane.

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_6 March 2007_

_Important note: I have decided to develop the Gondoan language in the story and today (7th March) added a long footnote to Chapter Three : Toes where Sheeta first speaks it. If you're a reader who is up to speed in the story please go back to Chapter Three to pick up on my plans for this. It's gonna be big. _

_For author notes about Chapter Ten, please see my forum (click on my pen name)_


	12. Chapter 11 : Kitchen

**Chapter Eleven – Kitchen **

The week they stayed at Tanner and Morwen's farm flew by. They were kept busy, rising with the dawn, working hard and collapsing into bed exhausted not long after sunset. Pazu was out all day every day, he and Tanner would be working by six and would eat breakfast and lunch in the fields. Sheeta and Morwen would make up food for them the previous evening and leave their meals wrapped in greased paper in the pantry where it was cool. Breakfast would be a sandwich of scrambled egg or a slice of cold meat, fruit such as an apple or some plums and a drink – most often milk although Tanner would rise fifteen minutes before Pazu and brew up a huge billycan of tea which would go down their throats like nectar in the cool of the morning when they reached the fields. Even stone cold at the end of the day Tanner's dark strong herbal tea was refreshing and they'd usually drain the billycan dry between them as they walked back along the lane. Lunch would usually be a cold meat pie or a huge chunk of bloomer bread and cheese and Morwen's own delicious pickle. And more hard boiled eggs to go with it. Again fruit for pudding or on some days a wedge of dark treacly cake mysterious with dried fruits and nuts.

The barley fields took them two and a half days and after that the potato field needed another day and a half, the sugarbeet, turnips, carrots and beans a day each. Pazu enjoyed every minute of it, adventuring was wonderful, especially if he could have adventures with Sheeta, but what he really enjoyed was putting his feet down somewhere, laying his hat aside and working. Steam engines, down mines, building flying machines, helping fire the trains that rattled along the Ravine, and now harvesting – he loved it all. Even though he came home each evening exhausted, his step was lighter that week than it had been for some time.

Travelling was good, yes. But standing still was better, if he could stand still in a place like this.

Home.

He realised that since the second day he'd thought of the farm as home. He thought about that and found it was a pleasant sensation. He thought about Sheeta's home and wondered what it was like. An appealing sense of belonging filtered into his mind and he reached to embrace it. But then he thought again of the rest of her community, her people, of whom she was ruler and the responsibilities she had there. Pazu let the pleasant thoughts of her home slide out of his grasp.

"Pass the bread, Pazoo," said Tanner.

Pazu hesitated, the stream of his thoughts still trickling away, chuckling over the stones of his feelings.

"Sorry."

He reached for the plate but Sheeta got there before him and offered it to the man.

"Uh, Hmm," Tanner nodded his thanks, his mouth full of vegetable broth.

Pazu looked at Sheeta but the girl ignored him and went back to her meal. He watched her for a few minutes, but she acted like he wasn't there, she turned to Morwen,

"All this lovely cheese and butter you have, do you make this yourself as well?"  
"Oh, yes, course. Can't afford to go townwards 'n buy it."  
"I used to make it as well, when I was younger. I'd help my grand-mamma, she was very good, she would make this delicious soft white cheese, but she was one of those women who never wrote her recipes down and after she died I could never make it."  
"I'm not a one fer recipes, girly, I jus' makes cheese. Good solid an' yeller, that's all we need, eh Tan?"  
"Aye. Best cheese this side o' Kingsbury."

It was the evening of turnip day and they were at the huge scrubbed kitchen table eating dinner. Pazu watched her talking, hoping she'd look at him, he only needed one look, she didn't even have to smile, just acknowledge that he was there was all. He could then use his eyes to indicate to her that he wanted to speak to her later. But she didn't look at him at all. Not once. Not throughout the whole meal.

Not throughout the whole week. It had been five days now since they'd argued in the lane. He worked all day, came home, washed, ate then he had time to be with her but she stayed in the kitchen working.

"Keechens is fer workin' boy! Out of it!"

Morwen had threatened at him one day when he'd gone in to try and speak to Sheeta. Morwen refused to let him hang about in there.

"You's takkin' up me space, so work or git!"

She would shout. So Pazu git and sat on the bench in the yard. He knew she was doing it deliberately, avoiding him. Punishing him. Perhaps she thought she was being kind, giving him time to think about what he'd said. He'd certainly had time to regret it. But now he wanted to talk about next week when they'd move on. The situation in the north sounded bleak, he didn't know what they should do. The glider was useless without a motor and no way could he talk Tanner into even buying a small one. So they'd have to walk, or ride with a journeyman perhaps. A train was another option. But he needed to speak with her so he could find out what she wanted. It was her home after all.

When Sheeta finished in the kitchen she either went up to bed to rest her leg or she'd sit with Morwen and do sewing or prepare food for the next day, shelling peas or peeling potatoes to leave them to stand overnight in water, something she could do sitting and rest her ankle. One evening he'd been sat in the yard and she'd come out with a bucket to fill at the pump. He'd turned, stood, intending to speak and she had seen him and gone right back inside.

"Morwen, I'm so sorry my ankle just hurt, I'm not sure I can carry the pail of water back. Would you do it please?"

And Morwen had, coming out to the pump instead.

_avoiding me_

Why is she like this? All I did was arrange for us to have separate rooms. He wracked his brains trying to think what else had happened. All he could think of was at the stream on the first morning. But that had all been inside him, he'd said nothing, nor had she. What did she want? What purpose was there to sharing a room? They couldn't do anything – they weren't married. So why was she so angry with him? But the main problem was he didn't trust himself when he was near her, so sharing a room would be too dangerous. And that was going to go on for ever wasn't it?

_wasn't it Pazu? how can I resolve that?_

These questions went round and around in Pazu's head for days, and then, the day Tanner and he worked the carrot field, something happened.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------

_7 March 2007 _

_For author notes about Chapter Eleven, please see my forum (click on my pen name)_


	13. Chapter 12 : Lucita

**Chapter Twelve – Lucita**

Each time Tanner and Pazu shared a meal out in the fields, Pazu noticed something. It even happened when Tanner took a drink, whether it be milk or tea or just water from the stream - just his hands cupped to make a bowl, the clear water dripping from them like pearls. Tanner would pause. When he drank the pause might only be a few seconds, but when he ate he would sit, back against a dry stone wall, his legs splayed out in front of him and his meal opened from its paper cover and laid out between his knees. And then, just before he ate, he would stop. Pazu might be halfway through his slice of pie by then, ravenous and chewing like a starving man. But one day, carrot day it was, Pazu halted, his mouth full of food, and watched the big man. He sat there, legs apart, meal ready and then he lay his hands on his legs, palms upwards and open and closed his eyes for twenty or thirty seconds. Then, he opened his eyes, grabbed his food and tucked in, as hungry as Pazu.

"Why do you do that?" the boy asked  
"Thankin' 'er," Tanner replied through a mouthful of pastry  
"Who?"  
"Lucita."

Pazu stopped chewing, his mouth hung open, he was so surprised.

"It might not be hers though," he said  
"Eh?" now Tanner stopped eating and gave him a confused look  
"She might not have prepared it, Morwen might have."  
"Whatcher on about lad?"  
"Why are you thanking Sheeta when it might have been your wife who made that lunch?"  
"I don't get yer, Pazoo, ye's not makin' sense."  
"Well what about when you drink your tea? You stop and think about something then as well."  
"Aye, I do that 'n all. D'ye have a problem wi' it?"  
"But you make the tea, Sheeta doesn't."

For a moment Tanner stared at him like he was an idiot, then the big man's red face split into a huge smile. He started to laugh. He laughed so hard he had to spit his pie out else he would have choked on it. He sat there, doubled over, hands on knees howling with mirth. He sat up and looked at the boy and Pazu saw there were actually tears on his face.

"Not Sheeter, Lucita. _Loo-seet-her_," he pronounced the name slowly, "wash yer ears out lad!"

Still chuckling he returned to his meal.

"Yes, that's what I said, Lucita," Pazu pressed on  
"No, no, yer don't get it, do yer? The name isn't yer girls name, it's diff'rent."  
"No it's not, that's her name."  
"Are ye daft in th' 'ead as well as deaf lad?" Tanner sounded cross now, "peoples don't 'ave two names now does they? Hm?"  
"Sheeta does."  
"Don' be silly, what'd a person do wi' another name? One for weekends now is it?" he chuckled  
"Sheeta is the name her grandmother gave her. She told me. Lucita is her proper name. I suppose her father gave her that. But she didn't say."  
"Really?" now Tanner looked puzzled, "well, now that's strange."  
"Why?"  
"Same as Lucita then."  
"Uh… yes?" Pazu was getting lost now, "But how did you know that was her given name? Her proper name? Did she tell you?"  
"C'mon lad, what ye on about? None of this is makin' sense ter me. So Miss Sheeter does 'ave two names then? Lucita as well?"  
"Hm."  
"Right. Well that's a damn fine funny thing that is."

Pazu waited for the big man to explain that last remark. But he didn't. He sat quietly for a few moments, shaking his head in what seemed to be amazement, then he picked up his pie again and began to eat.

"Tanner? Why did you thank Sheeta for the food though? I'm still missing something here I think."  
"I didn't thank yer girl, Pazu, I though' I'd made tha' quite clear. I thanked Lucita. Same name t'would seem, diff'rent person."  
"Who's Lucita?"  
"Hey, up, 'ere we goes."

Tanner looked around him, saw a small blue flower growing by the wall and pointed at it.

"Lucita." He said, solemnly.

Then he picked up one of the carrots.

"Lucita."

He put it down and looked around, remembered the pie in his hand and waved it under Pazu's nose.

"Lucita."

Finally he found a tiny beetle on the wall by his shoulder, gently eased it off and encouraged it onto his finger. He showed Pazu the finger and the small red beetle on the tip.

"Lucita," it was Pazu who spoke  
"Aye up, nows yer getting' it."

Pazu looked around and pointed down the hill at the stand of trees.

"Lucita?" he queried  
"No." Tanner smiled at him, he was enjoying this.

Pazu stood up and looked around the little valley. Up on the sheepfold the grey-white backs moved slowly among the bracken. Heads down, eating. Always eating.

"The sheep. Are they Lucita?"  
"Ah, now then there's interestin'. They _was_, once. So was the trees, once, I guess, though not in my lifetime, lad."  
"Young things." Pazu suggested  
"Ye got it. Tha's right. Ye's pretty bright for a young 'un. Young life. An' seeds an' eggs an' such. Growin' things. When them sheeps was lambs, they 'ad Lucita in 'em, or mebbe watchin' over 'em."  
"A god?" asked the boy  
"Hm, a spirit more like. Lucita be the spirit of birth, an' growin' things an' all life startin'. She be the mother spirit, the earth spirit, where we all comes from. Yer and me too Pazoo, yer an' me too."  
"But the food?"  
"Ah, right, that all comes from the land too yer see? Lucita's spirit creates it, makes it grow. All the seeds. And when I gets ready ter eat, I just takes a moment ter say thanks to 'er fer me food. Are ye understandin' now?"  
"I am. I think so."  
"And young Pazoo, the soil be where we returns too, ye know? It ain't Lucita that be callin' us back, some other bastard does that, but she takes what the other man gives 'er and she'll use that ter make new life."

Pazu had never heard Tanner use a bad word, not even when the potato turning plough had jammed and he'd had to spend an hour under it, freeing one of the blades. He looked at Tanner, who continued to speak, but quietly and in a very different tone of voice.

"Every one o' us Pazoo lad, we's all goin' back ter the soil, one day. But whens we gits there, Lucita takes out our bad parts and keeps the good, an' she'll use that ter make new life. Bits of yer might one day be a flower, or a beetle, or a lamb, yer see?"

Suddenly Pazu took a wild guess.

"I'm sorry."  
"Fer what?"  
"Your son. You had a son didn't you? Until last harvest."

Tanner didn't answer for a long while.

"When it happens, Pazoo, lad, yer needs to move on. Rememberin' is good, 'tis a way of honourin' those what have left us behind, but yer shouldn't dwell on it. I doesn't, I 'as to look to the future. Farmers do."  
"I understand. And I am sorry. I just wanted you to know."  
"Yer needs to look ter the future too me lad. That girl o' yers fer example."  
"What about her?"  
"Crazy about yer she is. I reckons she loves yer."  
"She does? Did she tell you?"  
"No, but goodwife Morwen talks to 'er. And she cries a lot, in 'er sleep."  
"She does?"  
"Aye. I reckons you might wanner talk to 'er 'bout that cryin'. Ain't doin' 'er no favours at all it ain't."  
"I've been wanting to talk to her all week, but I think she's avoiding me."  
"Hey, argued wi' 'er have ye?"  
"Hm."

The man and the boy ate in silence for a while.

"Can I ask you something Tanner?"  
"Ask away lad, but don' try me wi' any clever questions, I's only a farmer."  
"It's a personal question. Is that all right?"  
"Ask it and if it's too pers'nal, I'll not answer ye."  
"Have you ever been in love?"

Tanner chuckled, the question seemed to surprise him.

"Ooh, aye, still am, in a way."  
"With Morwen?"  
"O' course! Who d'ya think? Them ruddy dogs?"

Pazu swallowed, despite the gravy in the pie his mouth was dry.

"What does it feel like?"  
"Oh, well, now there's a damn fine question and no mistake. Wha' does love feel like? Hm… It depends on the kind o' love I reckons. If like you's wi' a girl and you kin hug 'er and kiss 'er an' whatnot, and like go fer walks up in the top field where no-ones a seein' the two of yer, then 'tis a fine feeling. It's like – oh, like yer feet ain't touching the ground, but yer's floatin' along like an airship, floatin' in the air. An' everything in the world is good, ye know? Everyone yer meet is smilin', the sun is out an' the birds be a singin'. When yers in love and it goes well, that's how it is. Yer wants to dance an' sing an' hug everyone."

Pazu had caught glimpses of that, he knew he had, when he was near her and she was in a good mood. When they'd landed on Laputa and fallen on the grass and held onto each other, he had felt it then, he was sure of it. That half an hour they had alone on Laputa before the Goliath had arrived was, for him, almost perfect. He felt like he and she could have lived there, just them and the animals and that tree. And that bright beautiful morning they had come back from Tepis Fortress and she had held onto him tightly and he'd put an arm around her, he'd felt it then. He'd felt like, if Muska had shown up right there, in a Flaptor of his own and chased them, he'd have taken one of Dola's guns and shot the man dead, because he had no right to interfere with Sheeta's life. A burning desire to protect her, no matter what.

For a wonderful few moments a feeling of great happiness came over him. He _did_ love her, he knew that now.

"But at other times, lad, 'tis not so nice. When yer love someone and they go away niver to return, or if yer love someone and they don't love yer, or worst yet, the person ye loves has another person they's in love with an' won't look at you, well then that's when it feels the worst. 'Tis like, ye have a stone inside yer, a big heavy weight that niver goes away, and it burns yer insides up and makes yer feel hopeless, like yer wanter kill yerself. When love goes bad, Pazoo, it's the worst thing in the world."

_dad_

Pazu had felt that too, for a long while. After the explosion that took them both away that day, he had felt it. For a boy of eight, it was a crushing thing, the life went out of him for several months until Okami pulled him through it and the Boss gave him work to do.

"We needs ter be getting back ter work, lad. We kin talk more later, if yer needs ter."  
"There is one other thing. I sometimes feel something else, and it's not either of the feelings you've told me about."  
"Oh, aye, what's it like?"  
"I can't explain it, it's like I feel as though I want to do something but a part of me is telling me it's wrong."  
"Do somethin'? Such as?"  
"I'm sorry, I feel bad about this, I feel, well guilty I suppose."  
"Yer kin leave it if yer wants lad, I'm nae forcin' yer ter tell me."  
"No, I want to. It's just. Embarrassing."  
"Oh, I see. Sounds serious. What sort o' times does it happen?"  
"The morning we came to the farm, we'd camped out that night in the glider."  
"Lifeboat," Tanner gently corrected him  
"Glider," Pazu repeated, "I'll tell you about that later. But it was the morning and Sheeta wanted to bathe. And her ankle was badly hurt so I carried her down to the stream for her to wash. I turned my back when she took her things off and went away, you know, so she could do what she needed to do. But…"  
"Ye looked. Didn't yer lad? Yer sneaked a look at her."  
"Yes," Pazu felt bad about this.

Tanner gave him a wide and very kind smile.

"'Tis quite alright lad, I'll not be tellin' anyone. How did yer feel?"  
"I had this bad feeling inside me, a hot feeling. I wanted to go up to her and push her onto the ground. And…well… touch her."  
"'Tis alright lad. There's nothin' wrong in such feelin's. They's quite normal in lads I reckon. Yer know, Pazoo, there's times, sometimes, when I sees Morwen an' maybe she's in her bath or she's sittin on the bed and brushin' her hair an' I feels the same. And we's been married twenty five years. We was married oh, at about yer age I think."  
"Really?" He was stunned  
"Oh yes, had feelin's like that all me life, 'tis a part of bein' a man."  
"What does it mean?"  
"What do it mean? Ha! Well, I niver thought about that. I suppose it's yer natural instincts comin' out."  
"Instincts?"  
"Aye. We peoples is like machines really. We has this need to continue the yuman race I think, to 'ave children. Girls feel it a bit diff'rent so I'm told, a sort of broody way, like a hen, they have this need, a sort of protective feelin' but us men feels it like in a strong way. Do yer know what that feelin' is Pazoo? It's yer body wantin' ter make babies, that's what that is."  
"But how can that be? I don't know how to?"  
"Didn't yer mam or dad tell yer?"  
"No, they died a long time ago."  
"Oh. Well, in fact yer don't needs ter know," Pazu noticed that a stronger red colour was spreading up Tanner's neck and onto his face. The man was blushing! "But if truth be told, when the time comes yer don't actually need ter know. One day, you'll be with a girl ye love and she'll love ye and yer take yer clothes off and suddenly yer'll know what ter do. 'Tis a strong instinct and everyone has it, deep inside like a seed planted at birth. Like chick birds know to flap their wings instead of droppin' like a stone outer the nest. Yer just knows what ter do. And if we don't finish this carrot field Morwen'll know what ter do to us an' all. With them two devil hounds o' hers I don't doubt."

--I--  
---o-o-oOo-o-o---  
I I

They had been back at work an hour and were three quarters of the way through the carrot field now. Pazu stopped for a pull on his water canteen. Tanner, grinning at him from a little way off, called over,

"And I'm thinkin' as well, when ye and yer girl is makin' babies lad, Lucita will be with yer then, the mother spirit is takin' care of her new lives even as they is bein' created. O' course some days lots o' people all over the world is at it. Like rabbits they are some days I reckon' and Lucita can't be everywhere at once, so sometimes she misses it an' the baby doesn't happen. Which is nice coz we gets a free practice like, and that's always fun."

The man bent to his work again, laughing. Pazu held the tin bottle to his lips, wondering if Tanner was pulling his leg or whether the sun was hotter today and he'd had a funny turn. Pazu put his canteen away but Tanner's smiling voice came wafting across the field once more,

"An' you, Pazoo, yer'll be twice as well looked after as the rest o' us, coz yer'll have two Lucita's lookin' after yer. One as a spirit watchin' over yer and another in yer arms making sure yer gets it right!" And he burst into loud laughter again.

Pazu went very red in the face, kept his mouth shut and went back to work.

--I--  
---o-o-oOo-o-o---  
I I

They were finishing up for the day, dumping the carrots into sacks and loading them onto Tanner's cart. They'd stay in the shed tonight and then Tanner would take them to market in the morning. Tanner's big, slow, old shire horse, Ono, waited patiently between the shafts, his head permanently in his nose bag.

"Somethin' else too, Pazoo. Lookit that."

The farmer pointed out some flowers growing in the soil they had just denuded of carrots. They were tiny pale blue ones, the same kind he'd used as an example when they had been eating their lunch.

"Forget-me-nots, they is called. Pretty eh? Now forget-me-nots is a flower what likes a lot o' chalk in the soil. And roun' 'ere we don't get much chalk. This is limey soil. Things like carrots an' beets an' potatoes love it. Dark an' rich an' full o' goodness. We was lucky when we moved 'ere and bought this farm. Good soil. Lucita is good friends to us, which is why I makes sure I is always polite in return. But now forget-me-nots don't agree wi' carrots, or potatoes. But sometimes Lucita will play a little joke of hers, a little trick an' sometimes you'll see them flowers growin' right slap in a crop o' some plant what they usually hates to be near. Jus' like them ones there. And Lucita does that, she'll let grow a pretty flower here an' there and us farmers sees 'em and it makes us smile and brightens up our day, 'tis 'er way of tellin' us she's with us and watchin'. You get a carrot field what's got a few forget-me-nots in it and yer knows yer'll have a good crop, 'tis 'er way of puttin' us minds at rest."

Pazu looked at the pretty little blue flowers. And he had an idea.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------

_7 March 2007 _

_For author notes about Chapter Twelve, please see my forum (click on my pen name)_


	14. Chapter 13 : Moonlight

**Chapter Thirteen – Moonlight**

Pazu woke. It was dark in here with the door closed, almost pitch black. He rolled out from under the poncho and crawled across the hay to the barn door. Outside the yard was blue and quiet and mysterious, Tahro was well up on the southern horizon, waxing now and casting her pale light. He went out into the yard, moving quietly. He glanced up above the barn and saw that Ptamos had risen too and was already high in the south east. That would make it at least two o'clock. It would be getting light in two hours. It was still warm, even in the small hours of the morning and the crickets chattered in the lane, in the bushes. Up on the fold a sheep bleated.

He went back into the barn and picked up the thing he had kept there since dinner time. Holding it carefully he made his way quietly to the side door, the scullery door. He put his ear to the wood and could hear a snuffling breathy sound on the other side. One of the hounds was awake, had probably heard him outside in the yard. But the dogs knew Pazu's smell now and no longer barked. Which was just as well, because what he planned to do wouldn't be possible if there was so much as a single bark.

He lifted the latch and pushed the door open. The big wet hairy muzzle greeted him on the other side. Pazu squatted down and let the dog smell him properly. The dog could probably smell the slight trace of unease and nervousness on the boy, and possibly a tiny hint of another emotion – hope. But the dog stayed quiet, turned and padded out to the main kitchen and lay down on the stone floor before the dying glow of the fire. Barefoot, and praying that he made no sounds, Pazu went in.

The kitchen was a big room the whole width of the house. One side faced the courtyard. There was a deep stone sink below the window and from there Morwen could watch all that came and went in the yard. With one of the wagon doors open to the lane she could watch who went past as well. Apart from the front door by the sink that led into the yard and where Morwen had stood that first morning and lashed them with her tongue, there were two doors out from the kitchen, one to the side scullery where Pazu had just come in. In there was the big galvanised laundry bath that sat on its metal legs above the scullery fireplace. Morwen would heat water there and wash the clothes and bedding. From the scullery another door led to the pantry, a small room that was actually partly below ground at the back of the house. The ground rose slightly here, sloping up through Morwen's kitchen garden and the apple orchard beyond and towards the ridge of the sheepfold. But the difference in ground levels meant the pantry was always cool and it was here, stored on shelves and covered by damp cloths that Morwen kept her meats, cheeses, butter and milk.

The other door from the kitchen led along a dark narrow corridor down the spine of the house. The best parlour was on the right with big bright windows that faced the garden. On the left was Tanners workshop and at the far end were the stairs.

It was towards the stairs that Pazu now crept, carefully cradling the thing he was carrying.

He realised he'd never been up the stairs, in fact, apart from going into the best parlour once or twice where Tanner sat in the evenings and smoked his pipe, Pazu had only ever been in the scullery and kitchen. He climbed slowly, he was in no hurry. The wooden stair treads were uneven and old. He knew some of them would creak. However he had good balance, a good careful step and was used to moving in awkward places. Down mines or under the guts of the pumping engines to get at difficult bearings that needed his oil can. He had worked his way carefully around lots of places and Tanner's staircase was an easy test. He reached the top. The stair opened out onto an upper hallway or landing which lay directly above the downstairs one, it ran back along the spine of the building under the roof. There were three doors.

Pazu moved silently forward and lay his ear carefully against the first door. There was no doubt who was behind it, the deep booming snores of a man told him all he needed to know. He pressed on to the second door which was on the other side of the landing and would face the garden, above the parlour. He listened. Silence. He stood there three or four minutes straining to pick up any small sound but there was nothing. He put his hand to the doorknob and turned. The door lock released and he carefully pushed. The door opened three or four inches and then let out a loud squeak. Pazu froze. Faintly from downstairs there was a doggie grunt and the click, click of claws across the stone floor. Pazu waited, holding his breath. The snoring continued. Downstairs the dog wandered about for a minute then he heard the sounds no more. Pazu pushed the door again.

The room was quite large but clearly not where he wanted to be. It was filled with junk, beds, boxes, all sorts of accumulated household rubbish. There wasn't room to sit on the floor it was so packed with junk. Pazu looked carefully around wondering how a simple farmer and his wife could own so much rubbish before carefully closing the door behind him. As he pulled it closed he lifted hard up on the doorknob so its weight would bear against the hinge in a slightly different place. This time there was no squeak.

The boy turned, checked behind him towards the snorer's room, and moved on. One more to go.

He reached the far end of the landing where the third door faced him. It looked like this room went across the end width of the house and would be above the kitchen. Again, he listened. There was no sound. Patiently however he waited, the last thing he wanted was for the occupant of this room to be wide awake, and to see him when he went in. After a short while he caught a faint noise. It was the sound of someone turning in their sleep, there was a hissing noise, the noise a blanket and sheet make when someone turns restlessly under them. And something else, a faint sigh, the gentlest of sounds, but such a sweet sound too. Pazu found he was sweating. He wiped his damp palm down his shirt and put his hand to the doorknob. And turned.

_please don't lock it  
_  
The latch clicked loudly and he applied pressure so it slowly opened. There was no squeak, no other sound. He put his head round the door.

The sight that met him was almost enough to make his heart stop beating. She was there, that was the first thing that he registered. He stepped in and closed the door behind him. The curtain wasn't drawn and through the window facing the courtyard above the kitchen window, bright moonlight flooded in. The combined light of Tahro and Ptamos filled the room with gentle pale beams, the light falling across the wooden floor and the bed. The window was a little open and a light breeze came in. Swallowing past a dryness in his throat, Pazu stood, back pressed to the door, not daring to move, and looked at the bed. It was a warm night, too warm for blankets and she had become hot and pushed them down, the bedding lay across her legs. She wore a white night shirt, she must have made it from one of Morwen's old shirts, like she did with Dola's old clothing. It had a high neck and puffed sleeves that covered only her shoulders and was light and loose. Sheeta lay on her back, one arm hanging out of bed, the white wrist near the floor. Her other arm was raised and lay on her pillow. Pazu couldn't move. He couldn't do anything but stare. The night dress was quite short and between the hem of it and the pushed down blanket there were exposed three or four inches of her legs above the knee. The skin there was as white and smooth as her back, even smoother and softer looking, if that was possible.

But it wasn't just there that Pazu looked. The night dress material was very light and thin and the moonlight that fell across her made it almost translucent. And it was to the place between her neck and her waist that Pazu found his gaze inexorably drawn. He took one look at what was there, at the shadows, and the shape of her and then looked hurriedly away. He shouldn't see such things, such private things. He should leave. Eyes closed, his heart pounding he decided he'd do what he came to do and then go.

Averting his gaze from her, he stepped forwards. Beside the bed was a little cabinet. On it was a candle stuck down with its own wax, a book, her belt, her hair band. These and the clothes she wore were all she owned. He compared these few things to what awaited her at home and he realised that she couldn't live here, in another country, travelling the roads with him. Working from place to place, making a living, travelling on. Her home had everything, a house, her yaoko (1), her farm, her livelihood. That was where she should be, among her friends and people, not with him wandering the land like a gypsy. She deserved better. Pazu reached out and touched the hair band. No, he had to take her home, war or no war, he somehow had to get her home. And if that meant a nobleman would be waiting there and a marriage had been arranged then that was as it should be. It was in Gondoa where she would be happy.

He put down the thing he had brought. It was a clear glass jar, Morwen used them for bottling her pickles and preserves. He'd filled it with cold well water and picked three of the little forget-me-not plants. He turned the jar around and looked at the tiny pale blue flowers. They were the same colour as the moonlight. He turned to go, but before he went he could not help but look again. Her face was turned a little away and her pillow of wiry bushy hair lay about her face. In the moonlight it was no longer red-brown but dark, nearly black and mysterious as the dusk. More than ever he wanted to run his fingers through it but as he faced the bed and his arm reached out, he touched not her but the blanket, the sheet. He'd turned a little and found himself lifting the blanket and drawing it up and over her. He glanced at her one final time before letting the blanket down so she was covered. Warm night or not, she would get cold before dawn. He knelt, as though at an altar and lifted her white arm, placing it across her on top of the blanket.

Standing, he turned to go but as he did so a tiny movement caught his eye. A blue droplet of moonlight moved, a bead, a tear it was, on her neck. The stone, the Laputan stone she wore. But in the moonlight it was doing something. He bent closer and watched it. It lay on her skin in the hollow of her neck and it _moved. _Inside the polished crystal, behind the winged seal, the inside of the stone seemed to be swirling and pulsing like smoke. Pazu stared, fascinated. He had never seen it do this and he didn't know what it meant. He put his face very close and looked up at the window. The light of Tahro and Ptamos combined and fell on the stone. Pazu could see both moons in the sky, the larger brighter moon below the smaller. The two moons looked like a small head on a larger body. Pazu considered this and would have wondered if it was significant had his thoughts not been interrupted by his name being spoken.

"_Paetsu_…"

He straightened up instantly, filled with panic. She moved, turned on her side and became restless.

"_Paetsu_…"

The word wasn't spoken very loudly, but faintly, softly. She spoke in a part- whisper, part- sigh. Sheeta began to move in her sleep, she seemed troubled, she made other noises, low moans as though she was struggling with a dream enemy. Then she spoke again, she spoke twice, repeating something, Pazu heard it clearly but he didn't understand.

"_Yau he-ayerth al om-e tuh… Yau he-ayerth al om-e tuh_." (2)

She pushed the blanket down a little again and then made a sound that could not be mistaken. Crying. In her sleep she was crying. Pazu didn't stay, he couldn't intrude any longer. He wanted to comfort her but he shouldn't be here, this was the wrong place, the wrong time, the wrong everything. In fear and panic he left the room and fled quickly down the landing, chased all the way by the sound of her crying.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------

_8 March 2007 _

_(1) Yaoko :: Yaks, the Gondoan mountain ox. Bred, for milk, cheese, a kind of sour butter, meat and furs.  
__(2) Much as I'd love to, at this point in the story I can't give you the translation for this, it would ruin everything. Sorry._

_For author notes about Chapter Thirteen, please see my forum (click on my pen name)_


	15. Chapter 14 : Flowers

**Chapter Fourteen – Flowers**

The next day they all rose later, there was no need to be up so early and they breakfasted together. Tanner was going to Porthaven on the wagon, taking all the root crops and the beans to market. He kept back a part of the produce but not much, other than about half the turnips which were winter cattle feed. A second trip at the end of the week would take the bagged barley to the railway sidings.

Pazu came from the barn to the scullery and washed. Next door in the kitchen the smells of cooking made his stomach rumble. His face dripping, eyes closed, he reached for his towel, he began to scrub his face and then felt something. He opened his eyes and looked at the towel, wrapped in it had been a flower, just one, a small yellow one on a curved stalk, it's bloom an egg shape a little like a miniature tulip. He looked at it for only a second before he knew. Inside him his heart did something he'd not felt it do since that morning on Laputa, it beat in a certain way that made him breathe faster and the air taste sweeter and the colours in the room become more vivid. He lifted the flower and sniffed it, the scent was very faint but very unusual, a sort of oatey, woody scent. He dried himself, put on his shirt and slipped the single stem through the top buttonhole of his waistcoat. Thinking this should be a moment to be whistling, he recalled the song Sheeta had sung when she had been bathing, so he whistled that. He could only recall a few bars of the tune but whistled them over a few times and found he liked them.

Still whistling he went into the kitchen and sat down.

"Well now, someone sounds happy," Morwen bustled around with pans and plates.  
"I am happy. It's a lovely day. Where's Tan?"  
"Walkin' them dogs. Back in a bit I should think. Ain't yer worried where someone else is though?"

There was a smile in her voice.

"Isn't Sheeta helping you?"  
"Not this mornin', no. I give 'er the mornin' off. She's havin' a lie in."  
"Oh."

_but was up earlier to put that flower there?_

"Eggs? Bacon? Sausage?"  
"Oh, yes, please."  
"Pass us yer plate then."

Pazu lifted his plate to give it to Morwen and stopped, holding it a few inches from the table. Under it was another flower, a little lilac one. It looked like the same kind.

"C'mon then, foods gittin' cold."

He gave her the plate and she loaded it up. He sat looking at the flower, not being able to think straight.

"Yer gonna move it or what?"

Morwen was next to him holding his breakfast.

"Uh."

Quickly he moved the flower and his breakfast was deposited in front of him.

"Yer'll be wantin' some water fer that, eh?"  
"Hm, yes."

As though on cue, Morwen stood a small vase by his plate. In it was a little red flower, just one.

"Sorry, someone seems to have left a flower in there, 'ope yer don' mind, like."

She went back to the fire, humming to herself. Pazu added the lilac and yellow blooms to the vase. Morwen was singing now, she seemed in a good mood today. Pazu's heart still hadn't slowed down. The door opened and Tanner came in. He took off his boots and the kitchen was suddenly full of dogs, running around sniffing, smacking their tails against everything and clearly eager to sample Morwen's cooking.

"Get down with yer, you two. Yer'll eat the leftovers like usual so stop yer whinin'."  
"Mornin' there lad. Sleep aright?"  
"Yes. Yes, thank you."  
"Just thought yer'd have a midnight stroll though, eh?"  
"What?"  
"Straw, from the barn, all up the stairs. Needed the bedpan and lost yer way did yer?"  
"Uh…"  
"Oh, an' I just looked in on the cows an' someone left this on yer bed. Think it must be fer you, lad."

Tanner popped a blue flower into the vase to join the other three.

"Can't think it were meant fer Bessie or Sally, they'd just eat it. So it must be yers. Breakfast then goodwife! I'm starvin'."

Morwen laid a huge plate of food in front of her husband. The usual ritual, thirty seconds silence with eyes closed, then he ate.

"Tuck in lad, it'll be gettin' cold."

Morwen brought her own plate to the table, poured tea from the big ceramic pot and sat.

"Isn't Sheeta going to eat?"  
"Why is yer worried about Miss Sheeter? Yers not been concerned 'bout her this las' few days."  
"Uh, well," and he pointed at the vase of flowers.  
"And?" enquired Tanner.  
"I thought?"  
"Dunno what ye thought, lad, but I don' know where them flowers is from. Someone's been leavin' them about the place. Can' be yer girly, though, she's still in bed."

Pazu knew he was having his leg pulled, but he was too hungry. He shrugged and started to eat. He had almost finished and was on his second mug of tea when the world went dark and something soft and feather light covered his eyes. He put his hands up to his face and felt other hands, warm and small.

"Guess who?" she said

Pazu smiled so that as his cheek muscles moved, the hands lifted a little.

"Uh, the flower girl?"  
"Good guess."

He lifted the hands from his face, turned his head.

There was an angel standing there.

She was wearing a dress, a green dress. A dark rich bottle green that made her reddish hair come alive. It reminded him of the blue one she'd worn the day they'd met. Her hair was loose but she had a straw hat on her head, a big floppy one with a wide brim that came down over her eyes. The hat had a ribbon that matched the dress. Pazu stood. All he could do was gawp at her. She grinned.

"Aren't you going to say good morning then?"  
"Sheeta – what. What's all this?"

She rolled her eyes.

"And a very good morning to you too! Tanner, is he always this dopey in the morning?"  
"Oh yes, can't get any sense out of him 'til lunchtime some days."

Pazu turned back to the table.

"Eh?" he said  
"See what I mean. Complete rubbish he spouts. Day in day out, drives me mad 'e does, talkin' gibberish. An' he gets worse when you'd be aroun' Miss Sheeter. Dunno what's wrong wi' 'im. Pass the bread woman."  
"What?" Pazu turned back to face her.  
"Here." She held out a posey of wild flowers, thrust them at him, "Sorry, I couldn't find any forget-me-nots, someone seems to have already picked them all."

She continued to smile at him. He continued to do nothing, he was happy to. He would be happy standing there all day.

"Take them then. Don't you like them?"  
"Sheeta. Uh… dress?"  
"See?" Tanner mumbled through a mouthful of bread and egg, "complete waste of time talkin' to 'im."

Pazu suddenly woke up. He took the flowers. He still looked dumbstruck.

"Uh, thank you. Sheeta, thank you. They're lovely."  
"No," she said, "thank _you_. You're very sweet. What you did was very kind."  
"Ah – are you talking to me again?"  
"I think so? Am I talking Tanner?"  
"Sounds like it ter me. Yer'll 'ave ter teach that lad though. Ruddy dogs makes more sense some days."  
"Where did the dress come from?" Pazu blurted out.  
"An old one of Morwen's. I altered it. Do you like it?"  
"Like it? It's amazing. You look…uh."  
"Oh, fer 'eaven's sake, lad, spit it out. I's be wantin' me lunch soon."  
"Tan!" Morwen scolded her husband  
"Sheeta – you look. Lovely."  
"Thank you," she took a pace back and spun round, "well, I'm ready, are you Tanner?"  
"Hm, giz us a minute. Get Ono out."

He drained his tea mug, wiped his mouth on his sleeve and went to the door.

"Are you coming with us?" Pazu asked.  
"Of course," she smiled, "you didn't think I was dressed like this to milk the cows did you?"  
"So, you didn't mind?"  
"What?"  
"Me coming into your room last night."  
"Not at all. I'd been expecting you for a while. What took you so long?"  
"I, er…" Tanner was nearby, hitching Ono between the wagon shafts, "I'll tell you later." He indicated Tanner with his eyes.  
"Oh, wait, I have something else for you."

She went back into the farmhouse and returned a minute later carrying a canvas knapsack.

"Here. Thank you."  
"What for?"  
"When you made the crutch for me. I made you this the next day. As a return gift. The day you moved the glider to the shed."  
"Oh."  
"Hm. But that night we argued, so I never gave it to you."  
"I'm sorry. About that evening. I was a bit messed up."  
"Well, I still don't understand what was going on but I prefer talking to you than not talking, so let's forget it, hm?"  
"No, when I can understand it properly I'll tell you. I want to."  
"Don't worry about it. Come on, it's a lovely day."  
"Thanks."  
"Now what?"  
"The knapsack, it'll be very useful."

She made no reply but jumped up onto the back of the wagon, turned and held her hand out to help him up. He took it and she pulled him. He was surprised at her strength and pushed off with his leg too hard so that he overbalanced and came forward too fast. He fell against her and she toppled back onto the sacks of carrots and potatoes. They both burst out laughing and quickly sat up.

"Yo up!" Tanner called to Ono.

The wagon lurched and began to move and this time she over balanced and fell on him. This time the laughter from among the vegetable sacks didn't stop until they had reached the end of the lane and turned into the wagon road leading to Porthaven.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------

_8 – 9 March 2007 _

_For author notes about Chapter Fourteen, please see my forum (click on my pen name)_


	16. Chapter 15 : Leviathan

**Chapter Fifteen – Leviathan**

The big old shire horse plodded along at the only pace he knew. Sheeta and Pazu sat in the back of the wagon, draped over sacks and barrels. The motion of the swaying wagon was relaxing. Pazu lay back, arms behind his head, wiggling his spine against the sugar beet, trying to hollow out a comfortable bed. There was something in the air this morning, something nice. It reminded him of some days of spring, back at the Ravine when they'd all endured a miserable cold snowy winter when the world had been dark and damp for what seemed like years. Then spring came and the days got longer and the sun was warm on your face and the first flowers came out. It was like that now. Pazu had never had a year when spring followed the harvest. The time when the local small holders gathered in their meagre crops from the plots of land along the top of the Ravine had always heralded colder, shorter days, and falling leaves. Yet here was a place, in his head, where the seasons were different. Pazu decided he liked messed up seasons. Especially when she caused them. The sun was out and Sheeta was talking to him again. The world was alright, after all.

"Your leg. How is it?"  
"Better. All cured."

She was sat, cross legged on the low flat box that housed the wheel jack. She was picking at a length of twine. He'd noticed the bandage was gone, and the swelling.

"But five days ago you couldn't even put it on the ground. Now you're not even limping."  
"Yes, it must be magic."

She smiled at him, and if she did that, Pazu didn't really care if the tooth fairy herself had come in the night and healed her. Or if autumn was missed out altogether and they moved straight into winter. He just didn't care.

--I--  
---o-o-oOo-o-o---  
I I

The journey to Porthaven took half an hour. It was quite a small town of brick built houses, shops, chapels and inns, all very ordinary. They went down a gently sloping street to the quayside where the place was bustling, fishing boats lined the wharf and alongside the buildings that lined the quay, fishermen and traders had set up stalls selling fish, game and vegetables. Tanner manoeuvred the big wagon carefully along the quay between other carts and the railway wagons which stood outside warehouses on tracks inset into the cobbles. He stopped the wagon outside one warehouse, jumped down and went inside.

Sheeta climbed down and went to stand by Ono, petting the white blaze on his nose. Pazu stood up in the back of the wagon and looked around. It certainly was a bustling town. Across the harbour was a ridge of high ground with a watchtower at the seaward end. To his left a stone mole protected the harbour entrance. At its end was a navigation beacon in a tall tower. To his right, across the harbour was an industrial quarter and slipways, and dark smoke issued purposefully from several tall chimneys. But it was out in the centre of the wide harbour that his attention was drawn. Six or eight ironclad battleships lay at anchor, with a number of smaller vessels. The big ships were dull grey with ochre painted funnels. They bristled with cannons in menacing looking turrets and the coloured flags hung from halyards did little to lighten their appearance. These were machines of war, designed to kill on a massive scale. Had they been enemy vessels then nothing could live in Porthaven; their artillery would reduce the town to ruins in an hour. Around the fleet a dozen small boats chugged busily to and fro, delivering stores, coal, officers in smart white uniforms and messages.

A toot of a whistle caught his attention and crawling slowly along the quayside tracks, its bell clanging, came a little steam engine, very small and designed to work these sidings between the warehouses with their tight curves. The engine crept past the wagon and buffered up to two vans standing on a siding. One of the crew jumped off, coupled the vans up and the engine came back, drawing the vans past them with a clatter and squeal of steel tyres. Pazu had worked on engines just like that and he suddenly felt homesick. The Ravine had been a hard life; dirty, long days, and never enough in his belly. But he had some good friends there, and he missed them. After the evening a week or so ago when he'd seen Okami, he had vanished into thin air as far as she and the Boss would be concerned. He made a note to himself to get in touch with them somehow soon and tell them he was alright.

"Alright, lad, let's be getting' this lot unloaded."

The three of them emptied the wagon in half an hour. Sheeta stood in the back lifting the sacks and baskets and lowering them down to Pazu and Tanner who took them inside. Pazu found some of the sacks heavy and he was impressed that Sheeta could even lift them, with her newly healed ankle, let alone move them to the back of the wagon and hold them while either he or Tanner returned to take the load off her.

"Righty-o, thas' all done."

Tanner came out of the warehouse after shaking hands with a man in a long brown coat and a round hat. He accepted a purse of coins from the warehouseman and climbed back up in the driving seat.

"Now then, I's gotta go see a man about buyin' some winter stores. I'll meet yers at the railway stayshin in an hour, got that? Stayshin's at the top o' that wide street we came down, on yer left."  
"Alright. See you later."  
"Bye."  
"Oh, Pazoo, lad. Here's fer yer. Don' ye spend it all at once. And thanks fer yer help, yer's been a good worker... when I's could git some sense from yer."

Tanner chuckled and passed over some coins and then set off with the wagon down the quayside in pursuit of the steam train that was now busy further along, collecting more wagons.

Pazu looked in his hand. Three gold coins and six silver ones. They were Marinaer currency so he didn't know how much it was, but the image of three other gold coins came back to him. He wouldn't accept money like that again. Never, not when it concerned the person stood next to him.

"Where shall we go?"  
"We need a few things. A lamp, a knife, a compass. Something to cook in, something to eat with. I need boots and you need stronger shoes. Lots of stuff."  
"I can't travel dressed like this Pazu but I think I can make up some better clothes from some more of Morwen's old things. She seems to have a lot of things from when she was younger that no longer fit her."  
"Britches, a shirt and a jacket would be best."  
"I'll see what I can do. Socks too. We should spend as little of the money as possible."  
"Come on, let's look around."

The hour went by very fast. They walked along the quayside looking at the fishing boats and then turned up a side street. Pazu noticed what looked like a pawnbrokers or it might be a dealer in second hand ironmongery, and he made a note to himself to come here again when he returned with Tanner and the barley. They bought most of what they needed. Sheeta saw a very useful thing in one workman's suppliers. It was a cooking stove, a steel rim that would support a saucepan or kettle on short folding legs with a grate under it. It was fired by chemical tablets that contained two reactive agents. You took a tablet from the pack, (it looked something like a little cake of soap), snapped it to make the two chemicals mix, dropped it in the grate and it burned with a green flame for several minutes. The man in the shop told them it was a very hot flame and would heat a kettle of water or a pan of stew in a minute, so it was useful if they were in a hurry. It was expensive but would be convenient, particularly if they found themselves camping where there was no firewood or if they wanted to remain unnoticed somewhere and a campfire would make smoke. They both recalled Morwen's sharp words about how visible their campfire's smoke and light had been that first day.

Weighed down with stove, pans, two new pairs of boots, a new shirt for him (his old one had almost rotted away with the sweat from this weeks hard work) and various smaller bits and pieces, they went up the hill to the station. They could see it from the bottom of the street, the smoke from the locomotives and the sound of their tooting whistles being like a signpost. They sat outside and watched the horse cabs dropping off and picking up passengers. There were even a couple of motor cabs, still a novelty down in the Ravine, but apparently more common here. They relaxed in the sun. Pazu stretched out his legs, put his arms behind his head and tilted his engineers cap down over his eyes. While he was dozing Sheeta sat and secretly watched him from under the shade of her hat. She enjoyed watching. He was cute, especially when he relaxed like this. His shirt sleeves were rolled up and she looked at the tanned skin of his arms, the muscles there. Yes, very cute.

"Latest edition! Goliath lost with all hands! Numenaor battle cruiser lost! Sabotage suspected! Latest edition!"

The cry of the newspaper seller brought them wide awake. The boy was down the street a way and already attracting a crowd.

"Wait here."

Pazu sprinted back down the slope and bought a paper. Running back he passed a funny tall yellow painted house that had WIZARD JENKINS painted in wiggly writing above the door.

_wizard?_

He thought.

_they have wizards here? strange to believe in magic in times like these. perhaps its just a circus man, a fairground man._

He stopped when he reached Sheeta and they both looked closely at the newspaper.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

**HMAS Goliath Lost At Sea! - No Survivors! **

Enemy Agents Suspected! - Wreckage Washed Ashore!

from our special correspondent

Yesterday it was reported by His Majesty's Government in Numenaor that contact had been lost with the flagship of their Western Squadron, the battle cruiser Goliath. Last received messages from the vessel were a week ago when she reported she was in pursuit of air pirates and heading east over the Sea of Neb. Radio transmissions ceased soon after.

Wreckage and bodies of the fallen have washed ashore on the eastern Marinaer coast for several days now but without confirmation of the source.

Our special correspondent can report an interview with Captain Rama, master of the spice clipper Avalon, recently docked at Kingsbury, who said he had seen at least two violent explosions three days earlier. One on the sea surface and another at high altitude. Captain Rama thought the surface explosion was caused by a "gigantic gun" firing down from the position where the second explosion later occurred.

Considerable amounts of light wreckage have been reported by salvors and the Numenaorian Military have reportedly requested the Marinaer Government to send their militia to cordon off a number of beaches where bodies have been reported washed up from the sea.

No trace of any so-called air pirate vessel has so far been confirmed.

Goliath was commissioned only a year ago and was said to be the biggest and most advanced warship in the world. Her two sister ships in the class, Thunderer and Leviathan are said to be nearing completion and Leviathan has already undergone her main performance trials and is due to enter service within a matter of weeks.

The loss of such an advanced vessel points the finger of suspicion at Restormellian agents or saboteurs. The King of Restormel has recently taken a hostile stance against Numenaor due to the southern kingdom's alliance with Marinaer.

Read our evening edition for further reports!

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

They looked at each other. For a minute they said nothing. This was terrible, now that the loss of the Goliath had become known the Numenaorian navy would be certain to search for survivors. If parts of the Tiger Moth were found, or even worse, pieces of Laputa, there was no knowing where an investigation might lead.

"Tanner isn't stupid, he will put two and two together," Sheeta looked unhappy, "he suspects we're lying to him already."  
"He knows," Pazu replied, "I was talking to him yesterday and let slip about 'our glider' again and he corrected me with 'lifeboat'. I think he's worked out that we didn't escape some sort of accident. Once he reads this," Pazu smacked the paper with his knuckles, "he'll have some questions for us, I know it."  
"What do we do?"  
"Leave. We have to move on. Our dialect tells everyone here that we are strangers. I'm from Numenaor and if anyone else saw us land, or saw the glider on the sheepfold that first night, soldiers might come to Tanners farm."  
"The glider!"

The glider was the worst thing. If the navy found pieces of the Moth that would be very bad, because part of that airship was sitting there, right now, in Tanner's shed.

"Yes. I have to dispose of it, dismantle it, destroy it. I can't leave it in Tanner's shed, if his farm is searched he will be in trouble. I had thought of leaving right now, this minute, but I have to clear that evidence away, I can't drop Tanner in it like that."  
"Where will we go?"  
"North, we have to. But not by train, I was thinking of leaving from here but I don't want any officials to see us, not even railway officials. We'll try and ride with a farm wagon, or a delivery wagon."  
"We just have to get across the border somehow."  
"Don't worry. We'll do it."

--I--  
---o-o-oOo-o-o---  
I I

"There wuz some funny talk in the pub, all sorts o' funny rumors."

Pazu turned his head and looked at Tanner, driving the wagon. Tanner was speaking without looking round.

"I'm not surprised. You heard the news then?" the boy asked  
"'Bout Goliath?"  
"Hm."  
"Oh, I wasn't thinkin' o' Goliath. Though, course, that were interestin' too. No, I was thinkin' 'bout the Albion."

They were in the wagon, on the way back. Tanner had bought cattle cake – winter feed - and a supply of barley seed and other seeds for next years crop, plus some timber to repair the cart shed roof. Pazu and Sheeta sat on the very back of the wagon, on the tailgate, their legs hanging down, trying to be as small and quiet and invisible as possible. They had been silent all the way from the station.

When Tanner mentioned the Albion, the girl and boy exchanged a guilty look. There was no stopping it now, Tanner wanted to talk.

_oh. this was it. now he might call the town watch out for them.  
_

"Yer gonna come up 'ere and talk wi' me lad, or is I gonna shout at yer all the way home?"  
"Come on," Pazu said to her. They climbed over the wagon.  
"Yer know what, lad? I wuz in the _Fisherman's Rest_ talkin' to me old pal Zeb what used to work on the airship runs, and the thing what surprised me most… d'ya know what?"  
"What?" Pazu came and sat behind him on a barrel, Sheeta perched next to him.  
"That there ship the Albion, curious thing yer know."  
"She doesn't exist," Pazu offered, dejectedly.  
"Oh, no, she exists all right. She was a regular cargo ship across Numenaor. That was until four years ago. Then she were scrapped. So there I was, puzzlin' over this and wonderin', now that Pazoo lad, he seems a pretty straight sort, works 'ard, does 'is best. An' that pretty Miss Sheeter, she too looks an honest type. So I was thinkin'… well, so why, if they is such honest people, is they comin' 'ere and lyin' ter me. An' I got to thinkin' that mebbe it wuz my fault or somethin'."  
"Alright! Alright, Tanner! We're sorry. We're very sorry," Sheeta spoke, "We didn't want to tell lies. You and Morwen have been so good to us this last week, I'm sorry that we ever told you that silly story. But please, please trust us. The real story is one you don't want to hear."  
"Yes, Tanner, it involves the story in the paper today and I don't want to tell you the whole truth of it because it's best you don't know."  
"Oh, I see, so yer can't trust the man what's taken yer in, given' yer a bed…"  
"No, it's not like that, nothing like that at all. Please believe us, we haven't done anything wrong. Someone was chasing us and we escaped. But now that this war might start and the Numenaorian navy might come asking questions about their destroyed ship, well, it's just best that you don't know. That way, if soldiers come here asking questions, they won't get any answers out of you."  
"I see."  
"I'm very sorry - that sounds threatening, and I hope it won't be like that, but you never know. We met a man recently who was obsessed with something. If there are others like him in the Numenaorian Government and they come here investigating the wreck, then I just don't want to think about what they might do."  
"Hm. Miss Sheeter, 'as you said anythin' to goodwife Morwen 'bout this?"  
"No, sir, not a word. We talked a lot about other things…"

_what?_ Thought Pazu

"…but not about how we came here. She knows nothing, which I think is for the best."  
"Hm, I agree. Thank yer for keepin' quiet 'bout it all roun' 'er."  
"Tanner, I need to go into the cart shed and get rid of the glider. Today, now that the story is in the newspapers someone might remember they saw it a few days ago on the hillside."  
"Oh, aye, yes, ye be doin' that at once then. I's got a place ye kin be rid o' it. An old mineshaft. Very top o' Small Top Field. We kin tak 'er there when it gits dark."  
"No, Tanner, you stay at home. If it's all right with you, Sheeta and I will do it. Borrow the wagon. That way you won't know exactly what we did with it."  
"Oh, aye, that be best."

The big man seemed resigned to the fact that these two kids wanted to shoulder the responsibility for their actions, and not involve him. Down inside though, he was impressed. And grateful.

Their conversation was interrupted by a low sound, a droning. It got louder and louder and Pazu, knowing an airship when he heard one, looked around. For a minute he couldn't see anything, then Sheeta, her eyesight better than his, pointed.

"There."

Low down, over the trees, moving parallel to the coast and a mile or two offshore coming up from the south behind them was a dark menacing shape. On top of the gigantic hull several vertical stabilizing airscrews turned steadily while at her tail and midsection a multitude of smaller faster spinning airscrews drove her along at a steady cruising speed. As they watched the airship rose higher and banked slowly in a gentle port turn.

"Coming inland," Sheeta said.

Tanner stopped the wagon and stood on the drivers foot board. Over the trees now came the huge vessel and the dull roaring droning grew louder as she approached. The ship was not flying alone, about a mile ahead of her was a slightly smaller ship, a cruiser and a mile behind flew a second cruiser. The three capital ships flew in line ahead as though on manoeuvres, turning one after another at the same point in the sky. Much closer and spaced several miles apart, leading the trio were two small vessels, frigates, sleek and nimble, scouting ahead of the battle squadron. They came closer, closer.

"They're coming inland of the port," Pazu shouted to be heard above the roar.

The five warships passed almost overhead at only three or four thousand feet. The battle cruiser filled the sky and the noise made their teeth rattle in their heads. There was no mistaking her, the evil wasp stripe disruptive camouflage, the mass of gun turrets, the roaring motors, the tiny green uniformed figures standing on catwalks and looking down. At them.

"Goliath," stammered Sheeta.

Tanner looked at her. Now he knew. Now he knew too much.

"No, can't be. Must be the Leviathan," Pazu shouted, the downdraft of the vertical stabilizer airscrews caused a breeze, even four thousand feet below.

The horse became restless and Tanner dismounted to calm him. The three of them stood watching this fearsome spectacle, this awesome display of power.

"Pazu…"

He turned. She was shaking, holding her arms tightly around herself. Of course, she'd seen Goliath in battle, had been right under it as it fired down into the fortress. Had seen it destroy the robot. Pazu reached for her and she collapsed against him. She didn't cry, she didn't let things like this affect her that way, she was stronger than that, but she did hold him, very tight and she shook and shivered against him. He put his arms around her and held her. They watched the five warships recede into the north.

"All I can say, Sheeta, is if Restormel goes to war and has to fight two of those, I think Numenaor and Marinaer will win."  
"Is that good or bad? It's Numenaor that's chasing us."

He held her tighter and she squeezed back much too hard.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------

_8 – 9 March 2007 _

_For author notes about Chapter Fifteen, please see my forum (click on my pen name)_


	17. Chapter 16 : Gun

**Chapter Sixteen – Gun**

Pazu hated seeing good equipment broken up. He'd been raised to respect machinery and to keep it running on a shoestring. The number of times he'd got Eckhmer to re-bore a cylinder or turn a new lining on a worn down bearing just to keep the old Clunker running. Investment in repairs to old machinery was worth it in a community like the Ravine's where if the machinery wasn't working you'd go without a meal. So dismantling the glider felt like a crime. Completely foreign to him.

He took off the wing support hoop and the cloth from the spars then set aside the spars and tail boom. Next he stripped out the canvas interior lining of the cockpit to expose the bolted sections of the big bucket that made up the body of the machine. He ripped out everything removable from the cockpit and then unbolted the sections. Finally he was left with only so much scrap iron and cloth. It was a sorry end to a machine that had saved their lives twice. It was no great flying craft but it deserved a better end. He picked through the wreck and pulled out a few items that he knew he could sell at that iron mongers in Porthaven. The wing hoop lifting winch was a good piece of equipment, it was a general purpose winch and gears and would fetch a fair price. Same went for the wing spar opening winch. The voice tubes with their covers, being brass, were something else valuable. The radio set was the best thing in there but when he turned it over and looked at it he saw a serial number stamped on the baseplate and a crown emblem embossed alongside. A military radio, no doubt acquired by some devious means at some time by old uncle. He couldn't risk selling it. One useful thing he found was the brass telescope which had fallen under the floor bracing. That went straight in his knapsack. The control column was again good steel but it so obviously came from a flying machine that he just didn't want to risk selling it.

By the light of his new miner's lamp he loaded up the small two-wheeled cart with the parts. He had thought about keeping the wing cloth and doing something with the spars to make a tent but it would be a lot to carry around, would slow them down and he thought they could sleep in barns or, if they had to, inns (he'd rather not be seen by anyone if he could help it, but if it had to be an inn they'd try and find one in a small village). No, a tent was a good idea but not practical to carry.

Just to be safe he covered the evidence with a tarpaulin. Sheeta had sat and watched him, had noted the dejection on his face, but when he was ready she took Ono's bridle and led the horse out of the yard, Pazu beside her. Fully dark now and with neither moon yet risen, it was a good night to be doing this. Only the faint starlight guided them, but Pazu was used to working in poor lit conditions and Sheeta, being a farmer, was able to find her way up the lane and along the pathway that led around the wall behind Small Top Field. They had almost got there when they had another reminder of why they were doing this. Three small military airships came over droning purposefully towards Kingsbury in the north east, a frigate escorting two plump supply vessels. They carried no navigation lights which was unusual. It was Sheeta who pointed out that this probably meant they were closed up on an operational war footing.

The old mine shaft lay within the ruins of a small building, a winding house probably. A pair of heavy wooden hatches covered the hole in the ground.

"Watch your step, it could be deep."

Pazu peered in but it was a black blank disc. Picking up one of the gliders cockpit bolts he tossed it in.

"One… two… three… four... fi…"

_TONG!_ The deep distant muffled boom of the bolt hitting something a long way down rolled back up to them on the surface.

"Oh, wow, three hundred and fifty feet. No, you definitely want to watch your step here, Sheeta."

They backed the cart up towards the pit, let Ono out of the traces and tipped it up. The metal, canvas and junk slid off and went clanging, booming and donging down to darkness.

"What a waste."  
"But it's done now. Tanner and Morwen no longer have any evidence at the farm. I feel a whole lot happier knowing that."  
"You're right. Come on, let's get back."

Pazu dropped the wooden shutters back across the shaft while Sheeta backed Ono into the traces again. On the way back she spoke.

"Isn't it beautiful here, up on the hill."  
"Hm."

They could see Porthaven in the distance, its lights twinkling and the blacker sea beyond the black farmland. Pazu thought both moons would probably rise together tonight, in an hour or so, and then the view would be even more beautiful. It would then be a lovers night, a night for sitting out on the cool blue silver hillside and holding someone's hand. Out on the sea they could faintly see the bobbing lights of the herring boats and to the south beyond Porthaven the faint chuffing of a train came to them on the night breeze.

It would be good to be able to relax and enjoy being with her, but Pazu was restless. He needed to be away, to put some distance between them and this farm, this town. Much as he wanted to sit down and just be with her, he couldn't, not tonight, there were things that worried him. But there was something he wanted to ask.

"Your name, your proper name, Lucita, what does it mean?"  
"Lucita is the queen of the Laputan spirit world, she is like a mother, like the soil. Everything that grows comes from her, she is the source of all new life. She is the seed inside a man and the egg inside a woman. She's very special."

_seed inside a man? men have seeds in them?  
_

Pazu was puzzled by that.

"Tanner knows her."  
"I know."  
"You do?"  
"Hm. He thanks her for growing the food he eats. Every time he has a meal, have you noticed how he sits quietly for a minute before he starts?"  
"Yes, I was going to tell you that."  
"Morwen does too although you won't have seen that because when they are together, like you see in the evening, he does it, and she's usually getting things ready. But when she and I have our lunch she does it."  
"Don't you find that strange? That they know the same mother spirit that you are named after? Doesn't that mean they might be Laputans too?"  
"I don't think so. When the flying age ended and our people came to earth, the islands landed in many places. There were lots and lots of people on them. There were lots of castles or islands, Pazu and thousands of people went to live on the land. I suppose their traditions have remained to this day, passed on to those who had always lived on earth. But compared to the millions on the earth already they were just a tiny drop."  
"But even so, Tanner's ancestors – or Morwen's – must have had contact with Laputans."  
"Possibly, but what use is that to us? There are almost no pure Laputans alive now Pazu, only a few up in the north of Gondoa. Even some of the people who live near me on other farms have _Onthuo_ blood in them."  
"_Onthuo_?"  
"_Onthuo_ means earth, the world. Literally it means everything, but it also means earth dwellers. Like Morwen..."  
"And me."

Sheeta paused and looked at him. Pazu saw an odd expression on her face. He tried to fathom what that look meant but couldn't. It seemed that she disagreed with something. Pazu was puzzled but let it go. She spoke again.

"...People whose ancestors never lived on the floating islands. You know it's possible not even I am pure blood. My family may have married into _Onthuo_ blood. My grand-mamma told me a lot about our history and traditions, she would sing me a lot of the old songs and tell me the poems but when she died I think there was still so much I didn't know. That's how the past is lost."  
"Like me. I know nothing about my past at all. Not a thing. There was mom and dad who both died when I was eight. I have a very faint memory of a very ancient man, he might have been grandpa or a much older uncle, I just don't know. Other than them I know nothing. I suppose we've always lived in the Ravine, descended from people who've lived there centuries."  
"It's sad in a way, the islands only came to earth seven hundred years ago but already we've forgotten so much. It's like we forgot deliberately, we deliberately didn't tell our children about the past as a way to forget it and live on the earth. There must have been something they wanted to forget very much."  
"If all the islands had the power that Laputa had, I can see why."  
"Oh, no, only four of them did."

Pazu stopped.

"Why?"  
"The four castles. Laputa, Lahoromne, Lapendraes and Latormolo. They were the capital cities of the Four Kingdoms."  
"Wow, you never said."  
"It's a subject I don't talk about, because it's old history now and worthless."  
"Don't say that. History isn't worthless. History is your past, it's like who you are. I hate not knowing my family's history. It's like… like I'm owed something and people decided before I was old enough to ask about it… like they decided I shouldn't know. That makes me cross. You should write down what you remember, what your granny said, I think it's important."  
"What, and end up like Muska?"

He could hear the bitterness in her voice.

"No way, he was just crazy. Mad. But if you remember for good reasons, then that's good. Sheeta, if you don't even tell your childen then they'll know even less than you do. Your grandma told you a lot, why don't you want to pass that on?"  
"The only other pure Laputan I've met is Muska. If people remember by doing what he did, I'd rather they forgot."  
"You know I can't understand that. Yes, Muska is a bad example, but surely the songs and the poems and the stories are worth remembering. It's like, oh, I don't know, the great composers that are alive today writing great symphonies and in the future people arbitrarily deciding they should be just forgotten,"  
"It isn't arbitrary, Pazu, it's very deliberate."

They had reached the farm now. He saw in her eyes that something about this touched a nerve with her. They'd argued here a week ago, he didn't want a repeat performance.

"Uh, alright. But surely the songs and poems are so nice. Worth remembering?"

Sheeta led the horse into the yard and backed the cart into the shed. She loosed Ono from his traces and led him to the water trough by the pump. As he drank she wiped a rug across his flanks. Pazu waited patiently, but it became clear she wasn't going to answer.

"What does _he-ayerth _mean?"

She looked at him sharply.

"Where did you hear that?"

Pazu was suddenly embarrassed.

"Uh, last night. When I put the flowers by your bedside. Um, you were talking in your sleep."  
"What did I say?"

She came around the horse and stood close to him, her eyes sparkling. Pazu didn't like that sparkle, it wasn't a pretty sparkle at all.

"Um, I can't remember… hm.. _yau he-ayerth_… then something else. It ended in _tuh. Om-e tuh_."

Her sparkling eyes left his and looked down, she suddenly seemed much smaller and simply - less. Less angry with him, less certain. Less of a person.

"Don't know," she responded lamely, "Sounds like nothing I'd say, mumbling probably."

He knew she was lying.

"Sheeta? What is it?"  
"Nothing you want to know Pazu. It's been a long day. A lot happened today. I'm tired."  
"Don't go. At least not yet. What did I say wrong?"  
"It's alright Pazu, not your fault. Mine. I should keep my mouth shut when I dream."  
"We're leaving tomorrow."

_stay with me_

"Alright."  
"Tanner will take us into town, I'll help him unload the barley and then we'll be on our way."  
"Good. I want to go away from here. Become invisible."  
"Alright. Sleep well Sheeta."

_please stay_

"And you, Pazu, sweet dreams."

She turned to go, something jumped inside him, made him speak.

"And you," she turned back, "I mean, sweet dreams. Not dreams in which you talk."

She grinned.

"Thanks. 'Night."  
"Good night."

_why didn't you make her stay?_

He stood watching her go. Even when the kitchen door had been closed for over a minute, he realised he was still watching her, thinking. Pazu led Ono to his stall in the barn at the opposite end from the cows. He filled the horse's feedbox and water bucket and put the blanket over him.

He came back outside, the sky was lightening, Ptamos was coming around the planet one more time and washing the dark hills in her steely blue light. Pazu sat on the bench by the kitchen door.

_seed? a man has a seed in him? you plant seeds though don't you? how does a man plant his seed?_

He had no idea.

_and Sheeta had said women had eggs. that's silly, chickens had eggs, women had babies._

One thing he'd learned tonight – Sheeta knew more about this seed and egg thing than he did. He could ask her if he wasn't so embarrassed by it all.

"Pazoo, lad?"  
"Tanner?"  
"Still awake?"  
"Hm."  
"Barley wagon to the railway sidin's tomorrer, yes?"  
"Yes. Early?"

The man came out of the kitchen and sat beside him.

"Not 'specially. 'Tis a day early, I was gonna take it day after. But you two…"  
"Yes, we need to go. Tanner, we don't want to go, its not _that_ you know. But we do have to. For your safety mostly. And Morwen's."  
"Aye. 'Tis best."

The boy and the man sat quietly side by side for a few moments.

"PazooTanner."

They had both spoken at once, interrupting each other.

"Uh, sorry, after you."  
"Um. Well, yer know lad, we know yers not visitin' relatives. That much is plain. If yer were and there were a war startin' then yer'd jus' go home and wait 'til it all blew over, eh? So, well, we don' know what yers goin' into but it might be dangerous."  
"Yes. We know."  
"So. Well."

Tanner hesitated.

"So, here. Take this."

He took something from his pocket and held it out. It looked like a bundle of rags. Pazu took it. It was heavy. He unwrapped the oily cloth and looked at the thing in his hand. He thought of Laputa's throne room. He'd last seen one of these there. He'd hated the sight of it then, an evil, loathsome thing. A thing to kill with. He hated the sight of this one now. It was black with an oily blue sheen to it, a sheen like the colour of a dead fish. It looked exactly like Muska's. Carefully he picked it up in his right hand. It was heavy and the snub nose barrel of the revolver was like the eye of death looking around for another life to take away. Tanner held out a box, a box of bullets.

"Morwen don't even know I 'ave it. I's got me shotgun so if things turn bad we'll be alright. But I reckon' where you's goin' yer might be best off havin' it."  
"I can't take this Tanner. I can't shoot a man."  
"Yer niver know lad. War's comin' we both know it. We've no idea what it'll be like. These airships could fly anywhere, land troops anywhere. This farmyard could be a battlefield next week fer all we know. I ain't suggestin' yer go looking fer trouble lad. Quite the opposite. But yer needs to think who yers with. That girly o' yers, she needs lookin' after. Yer needs to be thinkin' o' her. Much as that thing might scare yer lad, there's a girly there what's worth defendin'. Are ye understandin' me?"  
"Hm. I do."

Defend Sheeta. That was something he would do, had to do. No, wanted to do. Remembering what they had been through at Tepis Fortress and on Laputa, Pazu knew Tanner was right. If some other officer from the Government was ordered to follow up Muska's trail, even to find out what Muska had found and why he had died, then Pazu knew the trail would lead to Sheeta. And Sheeta still had the stone. If another Muska turned up Pazu wondered if he would have such misgivings about using the thing he held in his hand.

"Thanks, Tanner. I understand. I'll defend her."  
"Good lad. Yer take good care o' her now, eh? Me and Morwen's taken a shine to young Miss Sheeter, so you two be careful. And come back ter see us some day, eh?"  
"We will, Tanner, we will. And thanks."

------------------------------------------------------------------------------

_9 – 10 March 2007 _

_For author notes about Chapter Sixteen, please see my forum (click on my pen name)_


	18. Chapter 17 : Hamar

**Chapter Seventeen – Hamar**

The next day was sunny again and began quite normally, except that they had to say goodbye to Morwen, which was difficult. Pazu hadn't got to know her very well and waited outside in the wagon, sat atop the sacks of barley. Sheeta took ages to come out and when she appeared Pazu saw her wipe her sleeve across her face.

On the way into town they saw another airship pass over. It was a medium sized one and carried the yellow and pink striped Marinaer flag on its tail fin. It seemed that military activity was definitely stepping up.

Tanner drove into the station yard and a foreman directed him to an open wagon standing near the end of a siding. He backed up against it and Pazu pulled out the pins that held the drop door of the railway wagon closed. This fell down with a bang onto the tailgate of Tanner's wagon and they were able to transfer the barley sacks direct into the railway wagon. With the three of them sharing the work they were soon done. Tanner sheeted the cargo over with a railway company tarpaulin. He explained that it didn't matter that they'd delivered a day early, the wagon would sit here overnight and the goods train would collect it in the morning and deliver his barley to the Kingsbury agent the following day.

"Are you busy now?"  
"No, lad, I's got all me supplies yesterday. Just need ter pick up a paper then'll be off 'ome."  
"Can you take us down a road near the quayside? I want to sell a few pieces from the glider?"  
"Sure, I've nuthin' ter be doing now."

Pazu got a good price for his bits and pieces, especially the brass speaking tubes. When he came out Tanner was sat back on the driver's board reading a paper.

"What's the news?"  
"It's happenin' lad, don't think nuthin' can stop the fools now."

He showed him the morning's paper. The Restormel Government had delivered an ultimatum to the Marinaer Government yesterday at noon, demanding that within forty-eight hours Marinaer recognize Restormel sovereignty over Greycastle county and withdraw all troops to five miles inside the border of Northhoew, the next Marinaer county to the south. As of this morning Marinaer had not replied except to send more troops into Greycastle and to step up air patrols of the border.

"They're going to fight aren't they?"  
"Aye, lad. Damn fools."  
"Can you take us back to the end of your lane, Tanner? We'll go north on foot from there and get a ride with a passing farm wagon if we can."  
"Sure, I kin do that fer ye."

Tanner turned the wagon and set off back to the main road.

"Oh, here, I want you to have this."

Pazu held out the money he'd got for the iron mongery. Eight silver coins. Tanner gave it a quick glance.

"Them's yer glider lad, ye keep it."  
"We don't need it, we've got a lot of the money you paid me. And we'll be living in the fields and woodland a lot, we won't need to buy beds in inns or food very much. I think you and Morwen might need it more than us, I think when the war starts prices of things in towns like Porthaven will go up. Unlike me and Sheeta you two are tied here."  
"Nae lad, 'tis yours."  
"Take it you stubborn old idiot. For the thing you gave me last night, if nothing else."  
"Hm, alright, but I won't be considerin' meself in yer debt."  
"That's alright. You're not. I'm in yours. You've been a big help to us this last week. I want to thank you and Morwen."  
"Me too," Sheeta had moved forward from the back of the wagon to stand behind Tanner, "we might have been taken into town by the watchmen or soldiers if we hadn't be able to stay with you."  
"Eh, up, what's this?"

Ahead of them in the road were soldiers. There were five large khaki coloured bell tents pitched at one side of the road a little way back in a field. Around the tents and across the road a cordon of barbed wire was being uncoiled by some of the soldiers while others worked in twos and threes digging weapon pits. Across the road was more barbed wire attached to two wooden poles so the obstruction could be lifted aside to let traffic through. There seemed to be about thirty soldiers here, a platoon. Unlike the green dressed Numenaorian troops, the Marinaer infantry wore blue jackets and red breeches. Sheeta thought they looked smarter than the dull green Numenaorians but you didn't win battles by looking pretty. At the control post two officers were speaking with wagon drivers. The roadblock seemed to be checking on vehicles coming into the port, and not those leaving. This was fortunate because Pazu and Sheeta were immediately concerned that the army might be looking for a boy and a girl, strangers to the area. However when they got to the barrier they were waved through without a second glance by a bored looking officer.

"'Spect that's part o' the security fer the naval base."

Pazu looked behind them as they went along the road. He expected a shout at any minute, and rifle shots. But they were allowed on their way without any sign of interest from the soldiers.

At the junction of the lane Tanner pulled up at the side of the road.

"Aye, well, here's where I be leavin' yer."  
"Good bye Tanner. Thanks for everything. I enjoyed working with you. I learned a lot – not just about harvesting but other things as well."  
"Oh, aye, well ye be sure ter put ter good use what I learned ye, eh?"  
"Thank you Tanner, and bye. You've been lovely."

Sheeta leaned over from behind him and kissed his cheek.

"Eh, now, enough of that, Morwen'll be smellin' yer on me, ye'll be getting' me in trouble."  
"Bye!"

They jumped down.

"Hey up, Ono, let's be getting' home."

They watched the wagon turn down the lane and grow smaller as it climbed the shallow valley. In the distance a wisp of smoke showed from the farmhouse chimney.

"I'm going to miss them," there was a tone of sadness in Sheeta's voice.  
"Me too. He's a good man. I hope they'll be alright."

--I--  
---o-o-oOo-o-o---  
I I

They had been walking an hour, the higher ground on their left hand and the coast to their right. They had passed a number of farms but no villages. They had quite a lot to carry. As well as his bulging knapsack Pazu had been given a blanket by Tanner which he'd rolled up and looped over his shoulder, and tied the ends with twine. His jacket was tied around his waist by its arms and the poncho hung through the strap of the knapsack. His load wasn't heavy but it was quite bulky and the day was warm. Sheeta had a bag of food Morwen had given her, and another sack that Pazu had only learned the purpose of once they were a mile down the road and they were passing through a small wood.

"I need to do something. Wait here."

Pazu frowned and Sheeta climbed the wall and disappeared into the trees. While he was waiting an army officer came along the road on horseback. He looked at Pazu in the way that men in authority always look at teenage boys, as though he knew a teenage boy standing at a roadside meant trouble.

"Morning," Pazu greeted the soldier. Guilty boys wouldn't be friendly, right?

The officer gave Pazu a long cold stare but said nothing and rode on south. Pazu watched him go. He didn't look back.

"Well, what do you think?"

Pazu turned. A young man was sat on the wall.

"Sheeta?"  
"Of course. Do you like it?"  
"I preferred the dress."

She smiled at him.

"Typical boy. One look at a pair of girl's ankles and you lose all track of the practicalities of living off the countryside. Like this it's much easier to get around, climb and so on. And from a distance we look like two boys, if people are following up Muska's trail they'll be looking for a boy and a girl."

Sheeta wore what looked like a pair of riding britches. They were of soft cloth and a pale sandy colour. She had on a red checked shirt, a grey woollen jacket and a big soft cap, a workman's cap. Her hair was tucked up under it. Apart from her face she did look, from a distance, like a boy, which would help.

"That's great. And you look really cute."  
"Oh, you, stop being silly. I had to get rid of Dola's old clothes though. I burned them in the kitchen fire this morning. Pink pants and a yellow shirt are quite distinctive, just in case anyone survived the Goliath crash, I thought it best to get rid of them."  
"I'm impressed, you think of everything. Did you leave the dress in the woods?"  
"No, it's in the bag. There may be times when a girls outfit will help us. Besides I really like it. I'm just sorry I couldn't bring the hat."

That had been some time back and they had walked in silence since then. They came around a curve in the road and began to climb uphill. They passed a side turning that led down towards the sea. A farmhouse was visible down the lane and coming up it was wagon piled up high with hay. Sheeta tapped Pazu's arm.

"Let's see which way he goes. If he comes our way, you ask for a ride. I think I should keep quiet and pretend to be a boy."  
"Alright."

The hay wagon did turn their way and as it came up to them, Pazu stepped into the road and called out.

"Can we ride with you please?"  
"Whoa, Morris," the driver called to his horse, "Well hello there, sure, ye can have a ride. Where're you headed?"  
"As far as you're going. Where's that?"  
"Rutsford, north of Kingsbury."  
"Perfect! Thanks."  
"Alright, jump up on back."

They ran around the side of the wagon and boosted themselves up. The wagon was indeed heaped up and overflowing with hay but they squeezed onto the back of it and lay back on the soft straw. Sheeta looked at him.

"So lucky! This is good."  
"I wish I knew where places were though. I have no idea how far north Rutsford is."  
"Does it matter? Its north, the way we want to go."

It was late morning now and the sun was hot. They unloaded their bags and coats onto the hay around them and settled down. Pazu offered Sheeta a drink from his water canteen. They made small talk for a while then the conversation petered out and they lay in silence.

"I'm sorry about last night."

Pazu had been dozing, hat over his eyes. He pushed the peak up and looked at her. Sheeta had rolled over and lay on her side facing him, her head propped up on one elbow. He got the odd feeling that she had been there some while, just watching him.

"I was rude to you. And I told you a lie. But I'm sorry, I can't tell you what that means, what I said in my sleep."  
"It's alright. I was just curious. But I thought it might be important."  
"It's a line from a song. One I like to sing. It's almost like my song really."  
"Is it a sad song?"  
"Yes, in a way. Why do you ask?"  
"Because when you said the line in your sleep you started crying. I got scared and left the room."  
"_Taeg!_ You should have given me a hug."  
"Oh."

_what? she wants me to hug her when she cries?_

Pazu's heart leaped inside him, hope seemed to burst there.

"And what does _taeg_ mean?"

She laughed,

"Idiot. Or silly. _Yau taeg tho-or_. You silly boy."  
"What's 'girl'?"  
"_Tho-brwnweg_. _Tho_ is young. So _or_ would be man and _tho-or_ is boy. Although usually _brwnweg_, for woman is shortened to just _brwn_."  
"_Yau taeg tho-brwn_."  
"Good, that's it. Although not a particularly useful phrase to know with me around, since I'm not silly."  
"Or an idiot."  
"You noticed."

He smiled. He liked doing this, talking about her language, he liked the sounds she made when she spoke it.

"You'll have to teach me some more Gondoan. I like the sound of it, it's all earthy and breathy."  
"It's a very pretty language, when you speak it you breathe out a lot, lots of air passes across the roof of your mouth and you can give slightly different meanings to words by how much air you trap or release with your tongue."  
"Sounds complicated."  
"No, it's a very simple language and the grammar is really simple. It's a very basic language the beauty of it all comes out in the way you accent or emphasize different parts of words. If you don't know the exact way to say something, just breathe out more, make the sounds softer and you can't go far wrong."  
"Do it again."  
"_Yau taeg tho-or."  
_"Again. Sounds nice."  
"_Yau taeg tho-or."_

It was lovely, like she was blowing out a candle, or rather as though her breath was lighting one. Inside him.

"Sheeta, you can call me an idiot as much as you like."  
"You said it," she beamed at him and in his heart a thousand flowers bloomed.  
"So, what is _he-ayerth_?"

She looked down at the hay between them, fidgeted the fingers of her free hand through it.

"I'm sorry Pazu, I can't tell you. It's a complex word with lots of meanings. One day I'll tell you."  
"Alright. Your song, that song. Did you sing it last week when I carried you to the stream?"  
"When I was bathing?"  
"Yes."  
"Were you listening?"

_and looking_

"Yes. It sounded nice. Sad though too."  
"Yes, as I said it's a sad song, but there are hopeful parts in it."  
"Would you sing it now?"  
"I knew you would ask that!"  
"Do you mind?"  
"It's not a song for now, Pazu. It's a song for the evening, the end of the day."  
"Or your bath time."  
"Yes."

She smiled.

"I'm hungry. Are you?"  
"Starving."  
"What have we got?"

She opened the bag. There was a big chunk of Morwen's cheese, a bloomer loaf, several hard boiled eggs and a greased paper sheet crumpled up with a large dollop of her pickle in, and two apples.

"Hm, exactly like the lunch you'd make for us in the fields."  
"Her food is really good, but very simple. I'd go mad eating the same lunch day after day."  
"You've not eaten her meat pie."  
"Is it good?"  
"Wonderful. Lots of gamey bits of meat and gravy. And pastry so light that if you let it go, it doesn't fall but floats upwards. Yummy."  
"Oh, don't. You'll make me want to eat meat again!"  
"You know, we should share this with our driver. That's fair isn't it?"  
"You're right. Let's climb up front, but you do the talking."

"Hello."  
"Hey, little friend."  
"Do you plan to stop for lunch?"  
"Lunch? Hey, what's lunch? I has breakfast and dinner and that's it. Only the rich stop for lunch."  
"Well we have some food with us, and we're hungry. It felt a little rude to eat it and not offer you any. So – bread, cheese, boiled egg?"  
"Hey, that's very kind of you. Yes, that would go down a treat."  
"I'm Peter by the way, and this is my brother Simon."

_lying seems to come easy these days. why?_

"Hey. I'm Hamar (he pronounced it Hay-mar), pleased to meet you."

He stuck out his hand and Pazu shook it. Hamar nodded at Sheeta and she, keeping her cap low over her eyes, nodded back. Pazu got his knife out and sliced Hamar a chunk of bread and cheese and spread pickle on it. In companionable silence the three of them stuffed their faces.

Hamar was young, only in his mid-twenties. He had a round boyish face, blue eyes that sparkled and blonde hair cut in a strange shaggy style, longer than men normally did. He wore the usual workmen's clothes but favoured a beaten up old straw hat which kept the shade off his pale skin. He sucked constantly on a clay pipe which he never lit.

"Was that your farm back there?"  
"Hey, no. I'm no farmer. I'm a journeyman. I owns the wagon, all mine, all paid for. And Morris, and the two of us contracts for various loads. Go anywhere we do. I live near Rutsford and come and go around Kingsbury carrying all sorts of things for people. It's a good trade, I'm my own boss and no day is like the one before. Not so much fun in winter mind, but if I work hard in summer and put some money away I can stay indoors more days in winter. How about you two?"

He spoke in a rush, his words tumbling over each other. It was hard to tell when one of his sentences ended and another one began.

"Farmers. We live near Kingsbury and came down to Porthaven to help a friend with the harvest."

_lying. easier and easier._

"Hey, that's good. Friends are good to have."  
"You won't get to Rutsford tonight will you?"  
"Hey, no. I'll stop at the Cross Keys at Pemberton. Nice place. Good soft beds, good beer. Not too pricey."  
"We haven't any money, we're travelling cheap. I don't suppose we could sleep in the wagon could we?"  
"Hey, yes. If you show me I can trust you."

This line rolled out of Hamar's mouth so easily and happily, like all the others, that it caught Pazu by surprise.

"How do we do that?"  
"Drive for me, show me you are farmers. Animals like farmers."

He pulled the wagon over to the side of the road. Morris stopped and began to eat a bush. Pazu and Sheeta exchanged a look. She winked at him and climbed forward off the hay pile and onto the driver's board. Hamar slid over and with Pazu leaning between them Sheeta pulled her cap down more, picked up the reins and gently coaxed Morris on.

"_Usu_."

The big horse began to move, with a deft flick of the reins she got him walking at a good steady pace. Hamar watched the driver. Pazu worried if he would realize she wasn't a boy. Hamar sat for a while studying Sheeta and the way she drove.

"Hey, alright. So you know horses. That's good. Now, Peter, I've got a wagon load of barrelled beer. I'm delivering it to the railway station. How long would it take to unload the wagon in the yard and load it up again on a train?"

Pazu smiled.

"How many people have you got helping the driver?"

Hamar smiled back.

"Two. A boy and a girl."

Pazu looked at him, hard. He wasn't going to assume that was deliberate, not yet.

"Half an hour."  
"Hey, are you a circus strong man?"  
"No, I just use my head and don't unload the wagon in the yard. I ask the yard foreman which railway wagon the load is going out on and back the cart up against the wagon and do both moves in one."  
"Hey, alright, you've done this before."  
"Lots of times. But not with beer barrels. Barley in sacks, yes."

_is this a feature of war and travelling incognito – that I lie with every breath?_

"Hey, alright. You can sleep in the wagon tonight. But I'll take Morris into the Cross Keys stable and I'll put the wheel scotch blocks on."  
"Hamar, that's very kind of you, it'll save us getting wet under a hedge."

--I--  
---o-o-oOo-o-o---  
I I

Sheeta drove most of the afternoon. Hamar lay back and pulled his hat over his eyes. But Pazu noticed he didn't sleep. And from time to time he saw him watching Sheeta, and more than that he watched the way she drove. Pazu didn't know how to drive animals, but he worried that Sheeta might be doing it in a way that wasn't common locally. Her call to Morris to start off, '_usu_' was strange, and he thought it must be a Gondoan word.

They left the coast and went inland and crossed a countryside of gently rolling hills with fields now bordered by hedges instead of walls. There was more woodland here and orchards as though this were a fruit growing area. More than once they saw airships fly over and once a formation of strange small flying machines that reminded them of Dola's flaptors. These were slender sleek craft, more like a boat and had two men on them, one a pilot and one in a rear seat as a gunner, but the distinctive whirring wings were the same. Had old uncle stolen one of these once and built the flaptors based on this idea? Pazu couldn't help think that at midday tomorrow they would be in a country at war. And then he felt sure that travelling would get a lot harder, people would ask more questions, and strangers would be the focus of more suspicion.

Hamar tried to get them to come in the inn for a beer but Pazu declined. He knew that Sheeta would appear strange if she kept her hat on and it would be impossible to go the whole evening without her speaking. So Hamar unhitched Morris and took him to the stable and then returned to lock on the heavy steel scotch blocks to the wheels, preventing the wagon from moving.

"Hey, see you in the morning."  
"Good night."

They watched him go into the inn.

"Make up a bed, and a fire and I'll go find us some dinner."

Pazu wondered what sort of bed Sheeta wanted. Why was his whole mind fixated on being near her, or rather being too near her? He sorted through their possessions and stashed them in as near to a tidy heap as he could at one side of the wagon, keeping out the poncho and the blanket. Then he picked up armfuls of hay and threw them higher up onto the middle of the wagon, leaving an area by the tail gate that was only covered by a foot or so. It made a bed. A bed for two. For two people who would sleep close together.

_damn it Pazu, cut it out. think sense, it's just a wagon with hay in, a place we have to sleep because there's nowhere else. _

Then he jumped down and looked around for something to light a fire. He came across a night watchman's brazier, a steel drum on legs, pierced with holes, presumably used by someone who looked after the stables and wagons. He dragged it over to near the wagon and finding scrap timber in a shed he filled it and broke one of the chemical fire tablets under it. Within a minute a good warm fire was blazing. He found a couple of wooden boxes and placed them near the fire.

The harvest season heralded the end of summer and while the days were still warm the nights were growing longer now and cooler. He found it really helped to be near the flames, standing doing nothing as the evening lengthened into night he really noticed the colder air now. He wondered how long their journey would take. Sleeping out in the open would soon get a lot colder. In a month's time it would be a real hardship, if not impossible.

In the gloom he saw a figure approaching from the road. Sheeta had picked mushrooms, juicy fat plum tomatoes from he would rather not ask where and herbs – chives and parsley. She cooked in one of their pans, adding the last of the cheese and broken up bread chunks to make a vegetable broth.

Pazu wiped his chin on his sleeve.

"That was delicious."  
"Pleased you enjoyed it."  
"First the fish and now this. I didn't know princesses could cook like this."

He had brewed up tea from his diminishing stock of leaves. They'd bought a second tin mug but he didn't use it. He just liked sharing a cup with her, putting his lips where hers had touched. It was almost like touching her.

"I'm a princess in name only you know. I have to cook and mend and wash and sow and milk Yaoko and pick vegetables just like anyone else."  
"Do you?"  
"You know I do. I told you about my farm before."  
"Yes, but I thought maybe you had servants to do that."

She stared at him for a while. Her expression was so odd he became worried. Then her face split into a wide smile and she laughed.

"Servants? To work my farm?"  
"Sure, princesses don't work farms. Own them, yes, but work?"  
"Pazu, you are funny. They do in Gondoa. Everybody helps out, we all help each other. I told you my parents died when I was little and my grand-mamma last year. Since then I've worked the farm alone. Relatives and friends come to help out of course but don't for a minute think I sit on a big golden throne and have an army of servants."  
"I did."  
"Did you? _Taeg!_ _Yau taeg-dhu Paetsu! _You are so funny!"  
"I suppose being a Gondoan princess isn't like I thought."  
"It seems not. Centuries ago, yes, when we had all our silly old rules and rituals, but part of abandoning the old ways meant abandoning those boring stupid rituals too. And a good thing as well, I would have hated to be royalty in the old days. Do this today, do that tomorrow. On the last day of each week say these words, visit these people, give these symbolic gifts. I would have gone mad."  
"Who can princesses marry?"

Pazu immediately regretted saying that. Why had he blurted that out?

"Anyone they like. I think. I've not heard of any rules about that. Although I want to marry someone special. A person I've liked quite some time. He's really noble."  
"Oh. Well I'm sure you'll be very happy."

She gave Pazu a funny look, a mischievous look. He was so cute sometimes, and at other times so dim. He didn't get it at all, and that silliness was something she found really appealing.

_one day, Pazu, I'll spring it on you and enjoy the look on your face_.

"I hope so."  
"_Taeg-dhu?_ You said something _-dhu_ the other night."

_he's changing the subject_

"_Maerth-dhu_. That was the name of a constellation. The great wolf, the wolf-god. Lucita represents life, birth and renewal. Life in the heavens if you like. _Maerth-dhu_ is her enemy. They battle through the centuries for ever and neither wins, it's a perfect balance although not quite a harmony. In the night sky _Maerth-dhu_ rises first and devours the day in his jaws, he brings darkness, lies and the night when people are afraid. _Maerth-dhu_ is from the underworld, he dwells in caverns. _Tho-Brwnweg _is the maiden, and that's another name for Lucita, she rises in the sky later, and in spring just before dawn. She represents the victory of new life over death, or rebirth in the spring. Of course the winter comes again and the cycle goes on. It's very poetic, there are several songs about this heavenly dance they have where first one has the upper hand and then the other. The old legends tell that one day they will marry and then death will be taken away and all Laputans will be reborn as their children and live for ever in heaven."

Pazu looked at her, at her eyes in the firelight, at the tangle of her red hair.

"That's beautiful. You can't let those songs be forgotten, that would just be wrong. If Muska to you represents people digging up the past then please look past him and what he did. If you let him become a model of how to hold onto the past then you're accepting all the wrong and obsessive things and letting go of all the beautiful, magical, poetic things, like these legends, these songs."  
"I know what you are saying Pazu, but in the past when Laputans have tried to remember times gone it has always been like this. They rediscover what we had and the power the castles carried and they think it would be the right thing to have that back. Muska wasn't the first crazy man to think like that, there have been others."  
"We can remember and not become like Muska!"

Pazu suddenly found he was standing up.

"This is such a lovely thing. Just hearing your voice speak the language I know it would be wrong to lose it. Teach me. I have nothing, no family, no history, no past. Give me your past."  
"Pazu!"  
"Well. Don't look so surprised. Why not? I'm not going to go looking for crystals and I know there are no more flying castles."  
"No you don't."

She stared down, into the flames of the dying fire.

"What?"  
"You don't know that there are no other flying castles."

He watched her face, he could see on it that she wasn't messing him about.

"There are more?"  
"No longer flying, but the other three castles are somewhere, on the earth, buried. They may even have those horrible weapons still on them. And all the other islands I mentioned last night. One day people will find them. Miners, or explorers. And if the knowledge is kept alive men will again try to use their power. We both know where that will lead them."  
"There are three more Laputas buried in the earth?"  
"Somewhere, yes."

Pazu sat down. It wasn't over. The madness that had been Muska would happen again. Some other lunatic would find a castle with a crystal in it and the craziness would be repeated.

"There must be other stones then, like yours."  
"Somewhere, yes. No one knows where."  
"That's good. The chances of someone finding the right stone that would activate the right crystal is very small."  
"But not impossible. Do you see now? There are very few pure Laputans alive now, and not all of them know the legends. For each generation we tell the old stories to, the chance of someone finding a stone and a crystal grows. There are explorers now going out from the civilized countries and discovering new worlds, airships are getting better – you said it yourself. Soon someone will find the other castles. I can see how the future will be Pazu. I love the old songs, I love the old legends and poems. It makes my heart ache to lose them. But we have to. It's even wrong for me to teach you the language."

She had stood up now and was walking around the fire, her hands wringing in a knot in front of her.

"Do you see how much this hurts? All I want Pazu is to go home, live on my farm, raise a family and forget everything. But this war, these Government people. I just feel they'll never let me rest. Pazu."

She looked at him and he had never seen such a piteous look on her face.

"Pazu… I just want to be left alone. To live in peace, have children, see my children have children, and die. No one can ask for more, or deserve less."

She walked around a second time and this time he stepped up and stood where she was walking. She walked up to him and stopped. It was dark now, the only light was from the embers in the brazier. As she looked at him he lifted his arms and held them open. It was a simple thing, just two more steps. She took them and walked against him. He dropped his arms so that they enclosed her, held her. As he felt her against him he realized she was crying. He'd never seen her cry, not even in the worst moments when she had faced Muska, but she cried now, when the thought of a Government coming after her, perhaps even in years time when they had found another castle and she was grown up, coming for her again to force her to tell them how to turn a forgotten island into a machine of death. With that hanging over her, she could never rest.

"Sheeta. Let's sleep. You must be tired."  
"Pazu. Hold me. Tonight. I don't want anything else, I just don't want to be alone. Hold onto me."

He got up onto the wagon, held out his hand and she took it, her small warm hand in his, a simple thing. A little thing, only friendship, only a thing between friends, a thing she craved because it held at a distance the fear of her enemies. He shrugged off his jacket, his boots, and she hers. He spread the blanket and got out the poncho and she slipped off her riding britches. He looked at her, standing in just her shirt.

"Don't. Don't say anything. They are just too tight. Good for climbing walls and crawling through hedges Pazu, but hopeless for sleeping in, so I don't need any comment from you."

He hadn't known what sort of comment she expected, he certainly didn't have one ready, he was just stood there looking at her wondering (and scared out of his mind) if she would take anything else off.

He crawled into the poncho and held it up and open and she scrambled in too. He then dragged the blanket over them both and lay down. She faced him, one arm around his waist, the other tucked against her front, just leaving them far enough apart so they weren't pressed together. Was that how it was done? He had no idea, he didn't know where to put his arms at all. Her face was tucked down under his chin. Without speaking she reached for one of his arms and put it around her. He slid his hand up her back and pressed her closer against him. She snuggled down further and he lay there a long time. Long after her breathing had become deeper and more gentle, he was awake, thinking. As he lay staring past her hair, feeling it tickle his chin, watching the world turn blue silver under the moons, he heard her again, muffled and in her sleep.

"_Paetsu…Paetsu… Yau he-ayerth al om-e tuh_."

She repeated this line not twice, not three times, but over and over, it became a chant, and a lament. He held her tighter and in her dreams the struggle came again with the enemy, the enemy only she could see and which he could only guess at. And then, later in the night, as he knew they would come, came the tears. And this time he was there to hold her.

So he did.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------

_11 March 2007 _

_For author notes about Chapter Seventeen, please see my forum (click on my pen name)_


	19. Chapter 18 : War

**Chapter Eighteen – War**

Morwen put down the pan of bacon, wiped her hands on a cloth and went to the door. Before she got there the knocking came again, impatient, heavy. Her hand was reaching for the latch when she hesitated. She thought a moment, Tanner was in his workshop, next door, he'd have heard the knocking. He'd come.

"Dogs! Quiet with yer!"

The raucous barking stopped. She opened the door.

A man stood there. He had taken a step back and was now a pace away in the yard. He wore a long dark frock coat, fully buttoned up. At his throat was a crisp white collar and a dark bowtie. He wore a round felt hat and most peculiar of all dark glasses, the round lenses so black Morwen couldn't see his eyes at all. He looked like a blind man. He also wore black leather gloves and was gently pushing the fist of his right hand into the palm of his left. Tapping the knuckles to the palm ever so slightly.

He looked like a banker. Or an undertaker.

He had wisps of gingery hair and a thin ginger moustache, but it was his face Morwen noticed most. It was hard, and characterless, no emotion on it at all. She didn't think he had ever smiled in his whole life. Even as a baby she didn't think this man had known laughter.

He spoke. His voice was soft and well educated. And that just made her more uneasy.

"Would this be the Tanner farm?"

--I--  
---o-o-oOo-o-o---  
I I

When she awoke she was alone. She lay for a minute staring at a wall of hay and then sat up, reached for her clothes and dressed quickly. She looked around. One or two other travelers were in the yard preparing their horses and a large cart went grinding past over the cobbles towards the road, a big water barrel on the back. Pulling her hat on and tucking her bushy mass of hair under it, she jumped down and went to the horse trough. She pumped up a little fresh water and splashed her face, wrists and reaching into her shirt, scrubbed quickly under her arms. She would let her clothes and body heat dry her. Looking around for what she needed and not seeing it, she went out of the yard and behind the buildings into a field, and finding a bush for concealment did what her body had to, wiping afterwards with some large leaves.

Returning towards the wagon, he was there. She stood a little way away and looked at him. He lit a fire and put a pan on, adding tea leaves and herbs. She enjoyed watching him, his economical movements and his easy relaxed frame. He set the tea to brew and put two steaming bowls on the back of the wagon. Glancing round and not seeing her behind the hedge, he went to the horse trough to do what she had done. He pulled his shirt off and bent to pump water and she stood and watched him, looked at the tanned colour of the skin of his back, and how broad it was and his arms, his shoulders, where he scrubbed them she saw the muscles there. No, not just cute, more than cute. He was growing up, growing into a man.

She looked for a minute, just enjoying the simple sight of him, then, not wanting him to see her looking, Sheeta went to the wagon and investigated the steaming bowls. Porridge, he must have bought breakfast. Getting a spoon from the knapsack she began to eat.

"Morning."  
"Hello."  
"Sleep well?"

She watched him button up his shirt and wipe his neck with a rag. He watched her watching him. With his face turning pink, he picked up the second bowl, began spooning in food.

"I did, thank you. And thank you for last night. I was a little silly, I'm sorry."  
"You're not silly. I'll never say _taeg_ to you. But I'm glad you told me those things, it helps me understand why you're like this. I still want to learn more Gondoan though. And, um…"  
"Hm?"  
"Thank you for last night too. It was nice."

She smiled.

"I'm not usually like that. Only when I'm upset."  
"I suppose I should say that I hope you don't get upset again soon. But I don't mind, really."  
"What are you saying? Are you saying what I think you are?"

He merely grinned at her, his face turning even redder. He scraped the last of his porridge direct from bowl to mouth with his spoon. He said nothing, but his look was his answer.

"Tea?" she poured from pan to mug, took the first sip,  
"Yes please."  
"You paid for breakfast?"  
"Only with a little work. I swept the yard this morning. Push a broom for an hour, and you get breakfast, easy."  
"Any sign of Hamar?"  
"Inside, eating."

--I--  
---o-o-oOo-o-o---  
I I

They were soon on the road. The day was cooler, with high cloud and there was a hint of rain. They made good time and Sheeta sat in the back of the wagon and did some needlework with some socks Morwen had given her, trimming to size with Pazu's knife, and redoing the stitching, darning the holes.

Pazu sat on the driver's board alongside Hamar and they chatted about work. Pazu managed to bend his story around to having only recently begun farming, before that he had been a miner he said, up in Greycastle, but had moved out of there when the situation started. He was able to lie easily and effortlessly about mining in Greycastle. He didn't like doing it but it was necessary to hide who they were. For her sake.

There was a honk of a motor car horn, several loud impatient honks. Hamar looked over his shoulder and guided Morris off onto the grass. Pazu stood up and climbed onto the hay. Sheeta had no need to stand; at the back she had a ringside seat. A long column of army trucks was behind them and as the wagon rolled to a stop they drove by. Pazu began to count them but gave up when he got to thirty. They were painted dull grey with solid tyres and had grey canvas awnings over supporting metal frames at the back. Each was filled with soldiers, maybe twenty to a truck. The men looked pale and tired, no one at the farm gates they passed cheered them by. After the trucks came a series of huge cannons hauled by big fat tractors. These tractors had high armoured cabs behind which sat a vertical steam boiler. They rode not on wheels but on continuous metal treads that ran on rollers, laying an endless carpet as they went. Pazu had never seen anything like it. On the open backs of the tractors were bench seats and the gun crew of six or eight men sat there. The big cannons rumbled past, the tractor treads tearing the dirt road surface to pieces. Pazu counted twelve guns. Behind them came something even stranger; more big tractors laying endless metal carpets but these towed long low flat bed trailers. On each trailer was something squat and wide and hidden under a tarpaulin. Pazu glimpsed tracked wheels like the tractors on some of them and cannons poking out the front on others. Artillery pieces on their own mechanized chassis. Finally after about twenty of these had gone by, a miscellany of supply trucks and service vehicles brought up the rear of the column.

The military convoy receded into the distance, their passing clouded by a thick screen of dust.

Hamar concluded the obvious.

"Hey, guess it's war then."  
"Wow," Pazu was genuinely impressed.  
"Peter!"

He looked at where Sheeta was pointing. With her sharp eyesight something high up had caught her attention. He looked, squinting into the light. An airship was up there, very high and coming south. It was visible only briefly when it came out into breaks in the clouds. Then he noticed two airships, bigger, lower and slower that had been flying above the truck column. They bore Marinaer markings and seemed to be an aerial escort to the convoy. They both began to climb and Pazu could distinctly hear the heavy pulsing of their motors working hard. They clawed at the air, gaining height slowly. The very small high airship continued south then came round on a bearing towards the east clearly shadowing and following the road convoy, watching it. As the two Marinaer ships closed up with the more distant one, it swung away northwards and easily sped away. The convoy escort stayed high, covering the lorries and cannons from high up. One of them stayed below the clouds, it's companion climbed up through them and was lost to sight.

"Hey, we're still no further north than Kingsbury. If Restormel is sending aerial scouts this far south we're going to be in trouble."  
"War hasn't even been declared yet has it?" Pazu asked

Hamar and Pazu both looked at the sky, the sun's position above the overcast told them it was still two or three hours before noon.

Hamar let the mass of military transport get well ahead of them, the foul miasma of raised dust took ten minutes to clear, no point in driving in that.

--I--  
---o-o-oOo-o-o---  
I I

They were passing through a village that afternoon and noticed quite a few people at their doorways and garden gates, just standing about, some talking, others merely waiting, as if for news. Three little boys ran beside the wagon pointing sticks at them.

"Bang! Bang! Bang! You're dead! Bang! You're the enemy and you're dead!" their eager voices shrilled.  
"War now, I think," Pazu mused.

Hamar stared at the boys.

"Hey, let's hope it's a quick one and those poor little blighters don't get the chance to play it for real."

--I--  
---o-o-oOo-o-o---  
I I

It was later when Sheeta heard it. At the back of the wagon, a little distant from the clopping horse hooves and the intermittent chatter of the two men, and shielded from the fallout of their casual conversation by the mound of hay, she heard it. At first her mind was focused on her sewing, and it came to her from the edge of her senses, in the same way the birdsong occasionally intruded or the smell of cut grass in the silage fields beyond the hedges from time to time came to her. They passed over a stream where the water chuckled and squealing children jumped to the mill pool below. The laughter of their innocent voices, carefree in the dying days of summer, mingled with the splashes of their white bodies in the clear water. She had stopped working to lean over the wagon rail and watch them and to wave back at their cheeky insolent greetings. As these happy sounds faded and she sat back against the yellow wall at her back, she heard it. It reminded her of summer thunder, distant and harmless, a storm for someone else to endure. But summer thunder would roll over the hills and vales and be gone, mysterious and forgotten. This thunder however went on, it rumbled faintly and persisted, now growing, now lessening as the breeze picked it up or lay it aside. Swelling and falling like waves in a storm, she considered it and what it might mean. It never quite went away, but hung there low down on the edge of hearing. She puzzled over it for a time.

"Peter."  
"Yes."  
"Can you ear that?"  
"What?"  
"That rumbling. Like thunder."

She had put on her best boy voice.

"No."  
"Stop the wagon."

Hamar pulled on Morris' traces.

"Ho there boy, hold up."

The crunching of the heavy iron tyres in the grit of the road was stilled. High overhead, in the impossible height of its own song, a lark wheeled and cried. It swooped and went on its screaming, laughing way. Screaming and laughing at the world of men below. And the sound that replaced it was a sound Sheeta hated, it was a sound she had heard before, too recently and as well as being heard in the ear she could feel it through the soil, through the rock of the land, the grit of the road and the iron and wood of the wagon. Even through the flesh and bone of her own body she could feel it.

The sound of men dying.

"Hey, what is it?"  
"Explosions," Sheeta supplied, "Big guns. A long way away."

Pazu stood up, he climbed onto the mound of hay and looked to the north, his eyes shaded by an eager hand although he could see nothing but fields and farms and sky. He glanced at Sheeta. She wasn't looking. She didn't want to see. She sat, huddled on the floor of the wagon, looking back at the mill pond they had just passed. She wanted time to stop and for them to turn around. If Hamar would turn the wagon round and go back, and pass the playing children, perhaps time would reverse with them and the further south they went, so time would wind backwards. Guns wouldn't shoot, men wouldn't die, politicians wouldn't argue and even crazy men wouldn't steal crystals and she and Pazu could go back in time to the Ravine and she would awake in his hut and hear his trumpet playing. And just be with him.

But Sheeta knew this was a hopeless hope, a mere game she played in her heart. Like the children in the mill pond, soon such games would be over and war would show them its murderous face. No playing now children, this was serious stuff. There was no stopping it. Once men decided to fight, they enjoyed it. They relished it, she knew this from stories she had heard from the elder men in her village. She knew it too from the look on a crazy man's face as he'd spoken words that had opened the floor of Laputa and murdered hundreds with a gleeful deranged smile. Men were not crazy to love this, they just had to be exposed to it enough, and it became normal.

_I just want to be left alone. to live in peace, have children, see my children have children, and die. no one can ask for more, or deserve less._

She had no idea when she would live in peace. Maybe she never would. Perhaps she and Pazu were destined to never rest, to always be running from crazy men, men with a lust for power or a lust for killing. She let her gaze fall from the children on the bridge.

"Go home now children. Time for tea. Playtime is over."

She hung her head and a wave of depression took away summer's sun and replaced it with a darkness that was colder than even winter.

"Hamar. I'm going to ride back here with Simon. He's younger than me and I think he's scared."

_bless you Pazu. come to me._

"Hey, alright Peter, you take care of her."

Hamar flicked his reins and called on Morris to walk on. Pazu had climbed the hay pile and was almost down the other side when he realized what the blonde man had said. Maybe he'd noticed his brother was a girl yesterday when he'd driven the wagon, or perhaps last night. Perhaps he'd come out in the night to use the latrine and seen the brothers cuddled up much too closely in the wagon and realized then. It didn't matter, Pazu would speak to him when they parted.

--I--  
---o-o-oOo-o-o---  
I I

For a while he sat in front of her and she put her face against his chest. She didn't press against him as she had last night, and he didn't touch her, she just needed him close, she just needed to feel him care. After a time she lifted her head, smiled at him and carried on sewing.

"Alright?"  
"Yes, I'm fine now. Let's just get to Gondoa and get this over with. I can do it. With you, Pazu, I can do it."  
"Sheeta, with you, I want to. Oh, and Hamar knows you're a girl."  
"What did he say?"  
"Nothing much, but I'll talk to him when we leave. I'll ask him to not tell anyone about us."  
"Good idea. I hate the feeling of us leaving a trail behind us. I suppose the boy disguise only works from a distance."  
"Yes, try to keep your girly lips hidden. And those big blue eyes don't help. Are you alright now? Do you want to talk or shall I go back?"  
"I'd like it if you stayed."  
"That's alright. How are the socks?"  
"Why wouldn't you talk to me the other night?"  
"Oh, that. I was a bit confused. About my feelings."  
"Do you want to talk about them?"  
"Yes. I did then as well, I just couldn't find the way to say things."  
"Can I ask you something?"  
"Of course."  
"Why did you ask Morwen if we could have separate rooms?"  
"You ask good questions. The answer is the same as why I couldn't speak that night in the lane."

She said nothing, merely glanced at him and carried on sewing. There were a couple of minutes silence.

"It doesn't matter if you don't want to tell me, I was more concerned that you didn't like me."  
"I do like you, Sheeta. A lot. I assumed that was obvious. Right back to Tepis Fortress, I hope."  
"You were amazing. I don't think I ever thanked you."  
"Thank Dola, it was her piloting. She's the amazing one."  
"It was you who grabbed me."  
"It was you who jumped. You gave me no choice, _yau taeg Lucita_."  
"You said you'd never say that."  
"Never again, but that was a stupid thing to do, if I'd missed you, you'd have died."

She looked at him carefully.

"If you'd missed me I would have wanted to die."  
"Now that really is a silly thing to say. And I wanted to sleep in another room because I was having funny feelings."

Blurting it out was easiest, he'd decided.

"Oh. What kind of feelings?"  
"Uh, this is really hard to say. Let me say this. When I came up to leave those flowers by your bed, I looked at you sleeping. And, hm, well you looked very. Uh, I'm trying to think of the right word."

She thought she knew what he was trying to say.

"Let me make it easier for you."  
"Thank you."  
"This morning, when you'd made the fire, you went to wash at the pump."  
"I did."  
"I was watching you. I'd just come back from a walk in the field behind the stables. I saw you take off your shirt. And, well, I watched you. Because you looked nice."  
"I did? I mean, you did?"  
"Is that how you felt when you left the flowers?"

He realized that in simple terms, very simple terms, it was.

"Yes, I think. Yes."  
"Good."  
"Good? It's good?"  
"It is good. It means you feel the same way about me as I feel about you."  
"I do? I mean you do?"

She chuckled.

"_Yau taeg Paetsu, yau taeg-dhu_…"  
"Why am I an idiot?"  
"Your face, it's so… idiotic!"  
"Uh, so when I had my shirt off, you were looking at me?"  
"Yes. I don't think that's a crime."  
"Sheeta. A week ago. When you were bathing. Hm… in the stream…"  
"No! You didn't!"  
"I couldn't help it. I only looked once. Quickly. I had to."  
"You… you… had to? Pazu!"  
"You looked at _me_!"  
"You're a boy. Boys don't have things to hide!"  
"We're as bad as each other!"  
"No. You're far worse! No wonder you didn't want to see me in the bedroom, if you'd already sneaked a look at the stream!"  
"No, it's not like that!"  
"You are _so_ rude!"  
"_Me_ rude? You looked at me, you're just as bad!"

She picked up the only thing to hand, a bundle of socks, and hurled them at him. He covered his face with his hands and then dived at her and she collapsed giggling into the hay.

"Stop it! You monster!"  
"You're the one who's worse, talk about double standards!"  
"Get off me you great lump!"  
"Won't! It's your fault."

He reached under her, slid his hands under the red shirt and tickled her sides.

"Agh! No! No, no! Ow, tickles! Noooo!"

She arched her back and convulsed into laughter. He tickled harder and she squealed.

Hamar drove on, listening to what was clearly _not_ two boys. And also equally clearly not even brother and sister. In fact, he wasn't even sure he should be listening at all.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------

_12 March 2007 _

_For author notes about Chapter Eighteen, please see my forum (click on my pen name)_


	20. Chapter 19 : Train

**Chapter Nineteen – Train**

Rutsford was about the same size as Porthaven but it was bustling. A different atmosphere filled the town. Porthaven had been sleepy and going about its daily life as it always had. Rutsford was a town experiencing the confusion of war. The streets were thronged with people. Wagons, carts, smart motor cars, coal lorries, even charabancs all jammed the streets and mounted the pavements. Horses whinnied in fear and men shouted. People were on the move. South, always south. Go south. Away. Hamar stopped the haywain in a side street and the three of them stood up on the driving board and watched a sea of people sweeping past in the main square.

"Hey, what the hell is going on?"  
"There's a shop. I'll get a newspaper."

Pazu jumped down. Her cry of

"Be careful!"

Chased after him and held his hand. It took Pazu five minutes to push the fifty feet to the shop doorway. Inside it was packed with shouting excited people. Getting to speak to the owner was impossible.

"What's happening?" he asked a man beside him  
"Restormel has invaded, smashed over the border, smashed our troops, fighting around the coal fields. Everyone's getting' away."  
"How far south has the fighting come?"  
"Don't know. Don't care laddie, I'm off out of it, soon as I got me some food."

Pazu went back outside.

"The fighting is bad already, we've been invaded."  
"Hey, I'm going to get unloaded and get me to Kingsbury. I think this is where I leave you."  
"Hamar, thanks, you were a big help. Thanks for the ride."  
"Hey, that's alright. Good luck to you."  
"Thank you Hamar, and I'm sorry I messed you about."  
"Hey, don't worry young lady. But – one thing."  
"Yes?"  
"What's your name?"  
"It's best if you don't know. Just call me Simon."  
"All right Simon, take care."  
"Bye."  
"Hamar – please, if anyone asks, you never saw us. You came here from Porthaven alone. Yes?"  
"Hey, I follow you, Peter."

They unloaded their bags and watched Hamar edge the big wagon out into the flow across the square. The wagon swung left, mounting the kerb and scraping it's big iron hub against a streetlamp, then it was gone, carried along in the tide. At the far side of the main road was a railway station. With only half an idea in his head Pazu took Sheeta's hand and dived across towards it.

"Where?"  
"Train!"  
"Right."

Inside the station it was a little less chaotic, Sheeta sat on a bench inside the large brick ticket office but Pazu saw something that was like a gift from heaven. On the wall opposite the ticket office windows was a huge map of the railway company's system. Across the top in large flowing scrolly letters was written KINGSBURY AND GREAT NORTHERN RAILWAY. The capital Kingsbury, was at the bottom of the map and the company's lines fanned out north, northwest and northeast. He looked for Rutsford and found it about a third of the way up the map where two lines, one from the north and another from the northeast converged and ran on south to the capital. Where they stood was a junction, an important one it seemed from the size of the station. But the thing was he could get his bearings within the whole country from this map because while the K&GNR's lines were shown in bold red, other connecting company lines were marked in thinner black. And at the sides were marked the country's two coasts, east and west.

Marinaer was the bottom country of a continent shaped like a giant capital "V". At the southern tip was the Sea of Neb and south of that, somewhere, lay Numenaor. Part way up the right side of the "V" was Porthaven, and in the middle, low down, Kingsbury. Rutsford was in the middle above Kingsbury. Across the top of the "V" was a border and Pazu knew this was Restormel. He looked to the top left and saw Greycastle and a mass of small black railway lines that served the coal mining district. He had no idea how far it was north to south across Restormel but beyond that map, in the room above the ticket office somewhere, was Gondoa. He looked up at the gas lamp hanging from the ceiling as though by staring hard through the floorboards he might see it.

While he wanted to avoid Greycastle in the west, where the fighting was, he thought they might be able to get a train to the north east. He looked at the map. Above Rutsford on the northern line was a place called Middenhall and the tracks forked again there, the line continued north but another went more easterly towards the border on the coast to a place called Stoak. He memorized the names, tried to commit as much of the map as possible to memory.

"Can I help you sir?"

His view was blocked by a black coat with brass buttons on it. He looked up. A wide chest was behind the brass buttons and above that a starched collar and huge mutton chop whiskers beneath a red face. Above the face was a black cap with STATION MASTER written above the shiny leather peak.

"Ah, yes, are trains still running north?"

By way of answer the man pointed above Pazu's head. He turned and looked. Above the row of three glass arched ticket office windows was a big hand-painted sign.

DUE TO CIRCUMSTANCES BEYOND THE CONTROL OF THE K&GNR WE ADVISE THAT ALL PUBLIC SERVICES ARE SUBJECT TO DELAY AND CANCELLATION WITHOUT NOTICE.

"Yes," the station master said, "trains are running, but when and where is anyone's guess. War Department trains take priority, but we are running a service where we can."  
"I can get to Stoak?"  
"Stoak? Why would you want to go there at a time like this?"  
"Family."  
"We have a train running to Princeport beyond Stoak at eight this evening. Night train. In (he pulled a beautiful gold watch from his waistcoat pocket) forty minutes. Whether it will leave on time, or what time it'll get there I can't say."  
"Thank you."

Pazu turned to the ticket office window.

"I'd not make a habit of standing and looking at railway company maps if I were you, sir."  
"Oh?"

Pazu turned back.

"Spies. Been reported everywhere. Spies would find that map interesting I should think. Now I wouldn't want to see a man dressed such as yourself looking at such a map again, if you understand, sir."

The man put his hands behind his back and rose up on his toes. He gave Pazu a look that spoke more clearly than any words. Pazu considered his own appearance: Labourers clothes, dirty, a big travelling bag, straw in his hair.

"I see. Thank you."

--I--  
---o-o-oOo-o-o---  
I I

They sat on the train, they'd been sitting there half an hour and it still hadn't moved. From time to time Pazu got up, went out of the compartment into the side corridor and looked out the open window. The platform bustled with officials and passengers aimlessly wandered about but no one he asked knew any more than he did.

They had bought one way tickets and then on the platform a food seller had provided a meal, soup and bread and mugs of tea. Pazu had bought a bag of boiled sweets, he thought the sugar in them would help stave off any pangs of hunger. All they had now though were those and his water canteen which he'd refilled at a station tap. Their bags filled the luggage racks above them and they just sat, and fretted. It was getting dark.

What bothered them was that there seemed to be hardly anyone on the train. Pazu had walked along the corridor and they were definitely the only passengers in this carriage. No one was going north, which wasn't really surprising, but what troubled him was that if hardly anyone was using the train, the railway company might just cancel it.

--I--  
---o-o-oOo-o-o---  
I I

Captain Mahler went up the steps and into the building. He looked at the name board above the door. WATSON. TIMBER SUPPLIES. HARDWARE. STONEMASONRY UNDERTAKEN. Was this the place? It was the address Major Andersen had given him. First left past Porthaven station. Next to the library. A little uneasy he opened the door without knocking. Inside the small office there was just a desk. And one chair. That was all, nothing else. No filing racks, no pin-board, no in or out tray. The desk was bare. He closed the door behind him. There were two people in the room. A man in a dark overcoat, hat and dark glasses stood to the right. Government men always stood to the right. If the person coming in caused trouble they would turn to the man on the right and that would leave whoever was behind the desk on the assailants left side where he could be most easily tackled. Standard procedure. Sat on the other side of the desk was a slim scrawny looking man in a green suit. He wore a freshly starched shirt with a stiff stand up collar and a loud red bow tie. He had a thick mop of black hair, untidy and long. He wore half round glasses, granny glasses, Mahler called them. The man in the green suit was holding a flimsy in his hand, a piece of official government paper, very thin, used in carbon copy machines to print multiple copies of important memos. Mahler knew the system, white copy for filing, yellow copy for the contracting department, blue for stores requisitions, pink for action. The green suited man's copy was pink. To be actioned.

"Come in," Green suit said.

Mahler stood at ease before the desk. Green suit studied the pink flimsy. Mahler could see through it and saw it contained only three lines of typing. But Green suit ignored Mahler for a full two minutes, looking at the paper in his hand.

"Captain Mahler, yes? Third Company, Second Battalion, Eighth Infantry Regiment, His Majesties Marinaen Army."  
"Yes."  
"That would be yes, _sir_, captain. A colonel outranks a captain, even if he is a Numenaorian colonel."

Green suit hadn't yet looked up. He studied the three lines of typing in an off-hand, almost indifferent way.

"Yes. _Sir_."  
"This morning, captain Mahler, you were ordered to Porthaven to take up command of your company which has been deployed as security around the town. Set up roadblocks, check incoming traffic, smile nicely at the good citizens, all very dull and boring."  
"Yes, sir."  
"You think your job is dull and boring?"  
"No, sir."  
"I wouldn't want you to be bored, captain. This is a war, our two nations are fighting side by side. There is no place, not even here at the very centre of things in Porthaven," he looked about disdainfully, "where we can afford to have bored company commanders."  
"Yes, sir."

_what was this man's problem? wife had a headache this morning did she?_

"I understand that on the Rutsford road this morning some four miles north of here you met someone."

_oh, that. why is he interested in that? I mentioned it to one of the platoon commanders. and now nosey green suit hears of it. strange._

"I did, sir."  
"Describe them."  
"A boy, about fifteen or sixteen, farm labourer, carrying a knapsack."  
"No, captain, I said _describe_ him. _Exactly_."

Green suit took off his granny glasses and for the first time looked up. Mahler met his gaze. He had green eyes, bright and very piercing. Cold.

"Ah, yes, sir. Stocky, well built, medium height, red brown hair. A yellow leather engineers cap – a peaked cap. White shirt, moleskin waistcoat, blue overall trousers, brown boots. He had a canvas knapsack, a leather jacket, and a blanket roll around his chest."  
"Was he alone?"  
"Yes, sir."  
"Which way was he heading?"  
"He wasn't, sir. He was just stood at the roadside. He said 'good morning' to me."  
"Did he now?" Green suit's voice dripped sarcasm, "Well isn't that nice. What a pleasant young man he must have seemed."

Mahler said nothing. Green suit was a swine and no mistake.

"Don't you think so, captain?"  
"No, sir."  
"Hm, and your response was?"  
"I didn't reply. He was just a farm boy. I ignored him."  
"I ignored him, _sir."  
_"I ignored him, sir."

_right nasty sod we have here. are we allied to these bastards?_

"Where was this, that you met our young man?"  
"The road passes a farm turning two miles out of town, the Tanner farm. Sir."  
"Hm, yes, I know it."  
"And two miles after that it passes through a belt of woodland, sir, on rising ground. I met him there."  
"Woodland – that comes right down to the road?"  
"Yes, sir."  
"The jacket he had, captain. Did it look anything like this one?"

Green suit pulled a brown jacket from the seat back behind him. It was leather and fur lined, an aviators jacket. Green suit's one differed from the one the boy had in only one respect. It was dark stained and encrusted with sea salt.

"Yes, sir. Very much like that."  
"Good. Thank you, captain Mahler, that will be all. You have been very helpful. Please don't get bored playing roadblocks now will you?"

Without a word, Mahler spun on his heel and left the office.

Green suit rose from the desk. He spoke to no-one in particular. The big man with the overcoat and the ginger moustache didn't seem to be especially worth talking to.

"I expect she was in the trees, powdering her nose. How quaint."

He walked to the only window, pulled aside the net curtain with one long hooked finger and looked out at the street.

"We're flying north. Send Hempser and Ryddyck to Middenhall, we'll head for Rutsford."

--I--  
---o-o-oOo-o-o---  
I I

With a lurch and a clanking of couplings the train began to move.

"_At last_," Sheeta sighed, "We must have been here an hour."

The train rolled slowly out of the station and began to gather speed. Sheeta and Pazu sat on opposite sides of the compartment, in the window seats, watching the dark town, the dark fields slide by. While the train had been delayed night had come.

"This could be a long night. Why don't you rest?"  
"Yes, I might."

Sheeta found that the two arm rests that divided the seat up into three could be folded up into the cushion back to make a single long bench seat. She balled her jacket up into a pillow and lay down.

"Warm enough?"  
"Yes."

Pazu sat for a while watching the moonlit fields. From time to time he got up and went out into the corridor and looked from the opposite window but the view never changed: fields, woodland, small villages, farms. Occasionally he would scan the sky but saw nothing, no airships at all. He sat back down, folded his arms and looked at the girl across from him. She lay on her back, hands resting on her stomach.

"Are you asleep?"  
"No."  
"Sorry, try to. It would be good to rest."  
"You too."  
"I'd rather be alert. In case something happens."  
"My guardian angel. Watching over me."  
"I do my best."

She turned her face towards him and looked at him. She was still looking ten minutes later when her eyes closed and sleep came.

Pazu stayed awake. Several times in the night their train would stop. It seemed to be travelling very slowly, sometimes creeping along. At one point they had been stationary for ten minutes when another train overtook them, also going north. Pazu went across the compartment and opened the window. A military train was grinding by them, flat car after flat car with cannons on, and horse drawn artillery limbers, then horse boxes from which restless neighing came. The horse drawn artillery train seemed to take for ever to go past. Its wheels clank-clanking across the rail joints, red tail lamp fading into the night.

They were on a side track, presumably a place where normally slower goods trains were held to allow faster passenger trains to go by. In war time the priorities were reversed. There were four tracks here, two running lines and two passing loops, one going north, one south. He leaned far out of the window and looked ahead. He could see their engine, steam lazily whispering up from the chimney, the cylinders and drain cocks. From time to time the fireman opened the firebox to shovel in coal and the cab and trackside were lit up with an orange glow. In front of the engine he could see a red signal lamp. He watched it for a while but it stayed irritatingly, obstinately red.

He returned to his seat and sat for a while, trying not to sleep. He didn't know why he didn't want to sleep, but he was on edge. Sitting here in the dark made him nervous, they could be going north but here they were stuck.

--I--  
---o-o-oOo-o-o---  
I I

He snapped awake, wide awake in an instant. The train had jolted violently, and come to a sudden stop. He looked out the window. It was daylight, early, five or six o'clock, and misty. A low mist hung over the fields making them mysterious, like shallow lakes upon which low islands of hedge and tree floated. Pazu got up and went across the train and looked out the other side. Two tracks, no other trains in sight. More misty fields on this side, but here, on the east the sun was just up. He looked at it and thought how beautiful it was, through the mist it was a pure white disc and the smoke over the fields moved like dreams. Slightly ahead of where the train had stopped he could see buildings and a church tower, a sizeable town. It was annoying that the train was so empty, there was no-one to ask questions of. It was spooky too, as though they were the only ones here. He imagined walking forwards, all the way to the front and meeting no-one, and then climbing across to the engine and finding that deserted too.

_don't Pazu, that's silly._

Leaning out he couldn't see a red signal lamp, nothing to indicate why they'd stopped. He couldn't even see the engine, it was too misty, his view consisted of four or five carriages curving round into whiteness. Faintly, very faintly he heard the sizzling of the engine at rest and he thought he heard voices. He went into their compartment and shook Sheeta awake. She was drowsy but he roused her and offered her water.

"Hello. It's morning and we've stopped in the middle of nowhere. Don't know why, but I don't like it."  
"What time is it?"  
"Don't know. Not long after sunrise. About six."

Sheeta stood and stretched, hands above her head. She looked out the window and then did what he'd done and went to the other side of the train and looked out that window as well. She saw him. The man in black. Her heart missed a beat and the blood drained from her face. She put her hands over her mouth.

"Oh, my God. Pazu. Look!"

He looked. Exactly like the men who had been with Muska. Same dark coat, round hat and dark glasses. This man was tall and wide with fair hair and sideburns. He was on the other railway track and walking along the sleepers, down alongside the train. Mist swirled around his ankles and his outline became clearer as he came closer out of the low fog. He was two or three carriages away towards the engine end and he stopped occasionally to look up at the windows of the train. He said something to someone in the train and then came on again.

Instinctively Pazu looked down the train corridor.

"He's with someone, someone on the train. Coming this way. Get out, the other side. Now!"

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

_13 March 2007_

_For author notes about Chapter Nineteen, please see my forum (click on my pen name)_


	21. Chapter 20 : Hempser

**Chapter Twenty – Hempser**

"Get the coats."

She scrambled for them, stuffing them in her dress bag. Pazu reached up for his knapsack, grabbed it down, slinging it and the blanket roll over his shoulder. Sheeta took the poncho.

"This side."

He let go the droplight in the door with a crash, reached out for the exterior handle, opened the compartment door and looked down. When they weren't alongside platforms, trains were tall things. He jumped and his boots crunched on the stone chippings. He turned and Sheeta jumped, half into his open arms, half onto the ground.

Then they ran.

"Keep low, keep with me."

They moved as fast as they could while doubled over, keeping small. Their boots crunched and clattered on the ballast, it was impossible to be quiet.

"Hey! Other side! Ryddyck!"

Pazu glanced back, the man in the overcoat was bent down, hands on the track, looking under the train. Then he stood again and sprinted down the other side. He could hear his heavy shoes, long strides.

"Get up! Run."

No longer any room for finesse, Pazu stood and sprinted. He needed a gap in the hedge, a gate, anything. He heard Sheeta's light fast steps right behind him. A train door banged and there was a crunch as another set of shoes hit the track and began running.

Ahead there was a crossing, a pathway through a field went across the track.

"Sheeta! Path! Ahead, go right!"  
"Yes."

They reached it and slammed through the gate, Pazu knocked up the latch and kicked it wide all in one movement, as he paused to swing the gate open she pushed past him, ducked left and went along the hedge around the field. Mist, the field was full of mist.

"Mist! Keep low!"

He followed her.

Hempser heard the gate bang open. Damn, they would get off the tracks. He ducked and ran, bent low. He reached the end of this carriage and dived under the couplings between the two vehicles, he rolled on his back between the oily filthy buffers and felt his coat catch and tear, he kept rolling and converted the energy of his roll into a forward turn at the far side. His coat tore badly and he shrugged it off, still sprinting. He pulled his gun from its holster, pulled back the breech slide to check a round was in the chamber and flipped off the safety. Ryddyck was behind him, he could hear the lighter longer strides of the taller man. Not expecting to hit, wanting only to panic their quarry, he straightened his arm, cupped right hand into left and squeezed off a shot at the gate. A piece of wood splintered and went spinning into the air.

He reached the gate and kicked it open, slid down into the field. He glanced right and left. The field was low lying and full of mist. Which way?

"Mist down here! Stay high! Which way did they go?"

The taller, brown haired man reached the gate, he bounced up and stood on one of its bars, leaning forward, knees braced. He took off his dark glasses and slipped them casually in his coat pocket. Small bright eyes swept the field. They'd be stupid to cross the middle, even kids would keep to cover, he looked right. Nothing, then left. He saw a low shape moving in a ditch by the hedge, half way up the field already. Damn they were fast.

"Hedge. Left. Half way up, you go across, I'll follow them."

Hempser sprinted up the sloping field, the waist high mist swirling around and behind him, but the ground was soft and he wore city shoes. Ryddyck ducked down left keeping low and followed the perimeter of the field, unbuttoning his coat, reaching into it as he went.

Sheeta in front went like lightning, Pazu had never seen anyone move so fast, her small red shirted back bobbed in front of him, receding away. Damn, she was quick. Good girl. He glanced behind and heard the pistol shot. Crouching lower he kept on. He thought of Tanner's revolver but there was no time to get it out of the knapsack now. And it was unloaded. They got to the corner of the field and Sheeta swung right away from the railway tracks. There was a ditch here beside the hedge and some of the crop hadn't been cut right to the edge of the field giving more concealment. What they needed was a gate or gap in this hedge, keep as much cover between them and us. Pazu kept glancing behind, needing to know where their pursuers were. Looking right he saw a white shape moving up the field. One of the men had taken off his coat, or was it another? In a shirt? This man was moving fast, fully upright and sprinting, he'd get to the far hedge before they did. If there wasn't a way out up this left hand side, they'd had it.

Ryddyck kept moving fast, he cut the corner of the field and now sprinted too, no need to keep low. Two of them, good. He could see one wearing red, another in a shirt and waistcoat.

Pazu glanced back. Another hatted man with brown hair and an unbuttoned black coat was behind them and closing fast.

"Sheeta! Get up, Run!"  
"Gate!" she screamed, "Left!"  
"Yes!"

He watched, amazed, as Sheeta reached the wooden gate and seemed to simply bounce up it, climbing like a monkey, she was over in a flash and went right, keeping to the hedge.

Someone behind him called out.

"Gate. Left. Cut across!"

Pazu was nearly at the gate when a second pistol shot rang out. It was a dull popping noise, not even threatening. A patch of soil a few feet ahead of him blew upwards. Another pop and beside him part of the hedge went _snick!_ and twigs flew. He ran on, keeping low, small target. He got to the gate and surprised himself by running the last few paces fully upright, leaping at it and diving right over, all five feet of it. He rolled and got up, one fluid motion and kept going.

_nothing like being shot at to spur you on _

Sheeta had reached the top end of this hedge and had gone left along the top of the field, she was literally in the distance. He saw another gate in the centre of the side she was running along.

_that's it girl, through the gate you little beauty  
_  
He reached the corner and sprinted after her just as she disappeared over that one too. No more shots came and when he glanced back again he saw the two men just climbing the gate and setting off across the centre of the field. They'd cut him off. Heck, out of options, he stood and ran upright and immediately attracted two more bullets which went wide, he didn't see where.

At the gate he scrambled over and checked for Sheeta. There was a yard here, muddy, a barn, a farmhouse, a pigsty. Cover. She was by the barn directly ahead and he ran to her. Ducking around the corner, he looked at their next option.

"That way, farmhouse!"

She went, _so fast_ and his heart soared as he saw her go. He didn't know girls could be like this. He put his head quickly back round the corner of the barn and the two men were at the gate. There seemed to be just the two of them. He ran after Sheeta. She had reached the house and already opened the door. He went in. They were in a kitchen. The fireplace was cold, the room messy, there was an odd smell as though of spoiled food. It felt like no-one lived here, or had recently left in a hurry. He hurled the knapsack to the floor, saw a dresser and pushed and heaved it over the doorway, Sheeta helping. It was quite a heavy piece of furniture but if a big man charged the door he could probably knock it over. There was one big window by the door and a smaller one on another wall. A door behind them led to the rest of the house. No other doors.

"Doorway!" He grabbed the knapsack and went through the inner door, he spun and squatted down. From here he could see the main door and a good part of the yard out of the window.

"Sheeta, check the downstairs, are there any other doors?"

She went. He reached into his pack and pulled out the oilcloth bundle. At the bottom of his bag he found the box of bullets but it had split open, bullets were loose rattling around the bottom of the knapsack. He grabbed a fistful and stuffed them in his waistcoat pocket.

"Pazu! What's that?"  
"What does it look like?"  
"Where did you get it?"  
"Tanner gave it me."

He opened the cylinder and fed six bullets in. He'd fired Dola's shell gun before but never a gun like this, a gun designed for only one purpose. He clicked the cylinder shut and looked at the side of the gun. There was a small lever there, near the trigger. It was turned to LOCK, he flipped it the other way. He felt odd, he was shaking, he had a live loaded gun in his hand. He wondered whether, if he had to use it, he would.

"Any other doors?"  
"No. They can't get in any other way."  
"This might have been a mistake. We're trapped."

He looked out the window and saw the thinner man sprint from the barn to behind the pigsty. His head and shoulders popped into view, aiming a gun at the house while the bigger man sprinted after him. For a moment they were both still behind the low wall.

Pazu realized his only advantage was that they didn't know he had a gun. He wondered what they would do. He looked over his shoulder, Sheeta was squatting down behind him. He saw that she had pulled her blue stone from her neck and was holding it. She glanced at him and nodded. He looked out the window again and saw two hats bob up from behind the pigsty. One of the men, the bigger one who had no coat, suddenly broke cover and ran to the door. There were two shots as his companion fired at the window. It shattered and angles of glass span across the room, the bullets went high and plaster billowed from the wall on Pazu's other side. There was an almighty crash at the door and the heavy dresser leaned suddenly, one of its glass fronted doors opened and plates and glassware spewed out smashing on the floor. Pazu raised the gun, cocking back the hammer with both thumbs. He held it in his right hand, arm straight and his left hand gripped his right wrist. The dresser moved again, began to fall. The door came open. A third bullet came through the open window and shattered a picture on the far wall.

Behind Pazu there came a touch, a hand on his shoulder. He suddenly felt an immense wave flow over him, a strong surge of emotion. They were here again, back to get her, to take her away. He recalled those three gold coins. Anger burst in him, they wouldn't have her. His body came alive, a force of energy that he didn't understand because adrenalin was an unknown quantity to him, exploded into him powering him like a motor. As well as his muscles and senses coming alive, and the anger, there was something else, that ache he'd felt that morning at the bathing pool, he felt that again. Then, not much more than a week ago, he hadn't understood what the feeling was. It had angered and confused him. Now, he understood. It was love and it poured into him from her hand on his shoulder and made him do the thing he now did. No longer angry and confused, now he was simply angry.

The dresser tumbled over and the door smashed inwards. The big blonde man, Hempser burst in, he brought his gun down and left, sweeping it across the room. He saw the boy in the doorway to the left and his mind fixed on the thing in his hands. A revolver. Hempser had no idea the boy would be armed, Surun had not said anything about them being armed. As these thoughts (the last he would have) went through Hempser's mind and his hands swept his own pistol onto the target he noticed the black circle of the boy's gun muzzle. A black circle meant only one thing. It was pointed right at his face. The last thing he saw was a bright white light appearing from the black circle.

The revolver roared and Pazu's heart and gut and love roared with it. His wrist and arm snapped back, stinging with pain. His shoulder even went back and bounced from the door frame beside him. The noise was unbelievable and the room filled with smoke and sound. The big man's face looked at Pazu and then it vanished, his head snapped back and his big body moving forwards into the room, suddenly went backwards and down, hit the wall behind and bounced off. He crumpled in a heap among the shattered plates. Pazu looked. There was a huge awful splash of red up the wall and there were dreadful lumps of something in it.

Pazu shook and sweat broke out on his body. The hand on his shoulder tightened and he heard her scream.

"Quiet! They're not going to have you!"

He rose to a crouching position and looked out the window. The taller man had left the cover of the pigsty and was part way to the door when Pazu saw him falter, knowing his partner had been shot. Without any decision at all Pazu swung his gun up and right and squeezed the trigger again. The awful sound repeated and more smoke filled the room. In the enclosed space the noise was shocking, it made your ears ring. His shot struck the mud a foot in front of the tall man and he changed direction and ran off left. Pazu moved, scrambling over the thing on the floor and the fallen dresser to the door. He peered out just in time to see his opponent disappear around the barn. Filled now with something he didn't understand and unable to stop, his head seeming to ring and clang with something like joy, he raised the gun again, locked both wrists and fired once more. His shot struck the corner of the barn and stone chips flew. He saw the man running back down towards the field. Pazu went after him, he ran to the barn and slid along the side of it, back against it. When he got to the far corner that allowed him a view of the fields he saw the tall man running back across them towards the train. The mist had cleared a little now and he could see the locomotive, the crew on the footplate watching. At the windows of some of the carriages there were faces, they hadn't been alone on the train. They all looked his way, round white circles, mouths and eyes wide open. Pazu moved forwards but an arm with incredible strength grabbed his shoulder and held him back.

"That's enough! Stop it! Stop it, Pazu! Please!"  
"We need to get out of here now. Fast. Come on."

He ran back to the farmhouse, holding Sheeta by the forearm. Leaving her at the door, he went in, stepped over the thing on the floor, grabbed their bags and other things and came out. All he saw was a round shape, a grey waistcoat, white shirtsleeves and a red sheet up the wall. A huge red "V"

_the kingsbury and great northern railway map. other company lines marked in black. due to circumstances beyond our control we advise that services are subject to delay and cancellation without notice._

"Take this."

He thrust part of their baggage into her hands and set off in what he hoped was a northerly direction, sun to his right and behind him. He knew how these men worked. He was sure they were from the same part of the Government as Muska. The two men who had stopped the train would have flown there. They could fly and find them easily. They had to put a lot of distance between themselves and this farm _right now_.

--I--  
---o-o-oOo-o-o---  
I I

It was late afternoon. The sun was coming down again in the sky and it was dull and cloudy. It began to drizzle. He was exhausted, coated with mud and sweat. She must be exhausted too but she hadn't made a sound. He had held her forearm tightly and dragged her the first mile while she shouted at him to stop, to let go, to please stop. But he'd gone on, driven on by a need to get away. After a while she had stopped talking and walked beside him. Along lanes, skirting villages and farms, avoiding people and main roads, cutting through woodland where possible. How far? He had no idea, ten miles perhaps, maybe fifteen.

"Please let's stop. Look, there's a barn."

A small stone barn, alone at the corner of a field, a wood behind it. Good cover, a good escape route among the trees. He turned into the field and skirted its edge around to the barn. It began to rain heavily now, soaking them. He pulled the barn door open and looked in. It was dry and there was straw piled up in bales several deep against one wall. It would do.

He shut the door securely behind them. They walked to the straw bales, pulled a couple out from the pile and broke them open to make a bed. They both discarded their bags and other things and fell onto it. Pazu lay on his back, the gun still in his hand. He lifted it, slipped the lock on and opened the cylinder. He let the six shell cases drop out, three live, three empty. He dropped the gun aside, gasping for breath.

Sheeta lay beside him, she rolled over and lay partly on him, threw her arms about his wet shoulders and lay her head next to his. Her wet hair tangled partly over his face. She burst into tears. He somehow lifted his arms, each seeming to weigh tons and put them around her. If anything her crying got louder.

"Shush now. It's over, shush."

Through her sobs she spoke.

"Pazu. It won't ever be over. They'll come again, and again, and again. They won't leave us alone. You can't kill them all. It won't ever end."

And her soaking wet body shook against his.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

_13 March 2007_

_For author notes about Chapter Twenty, please see my forum (click on my pen name)_


	22. Chapter 21 : Kaesu

_this is for Vook, who's been very patient_

**Chapter Twenty One – Kaesu **

Sheeta opened her eyes, she was freezing cold and wet. Their combined body heat had dried them a little but the back of her shirt and especially the riding britches were clammy and icy against her skin. She looked inside herself and found a sensation of exhaustion, bitterness and hopelessness. How long would this go on? Would it ever stop? Would it take their deaths to make it stop? She sat up, it was gloomy inside the barn, evening must be coming. It was noisy too, the rain rattled steadily against the tin roof. The barn might have had slates once, or thatch, but now it was protected only by rusty tin sheeting, almost falling down. She sighed.

"Pazu, we need to get dry, get warm, we'll catch a chill like this."  
"Hm."

He hadn't slept, he'd laid, staring at the roof beams, seeing that man's face, the wide eyes, the expression of surprise. So fast, it had happened so fast he'd not had time to think but he knew that if he hadn't fired then the blonde man almost certainly would have: _his_ brains would be splashed up a wall and Sheeta would be their prisoner again. No, there had been no choice. Hating what he'd done, the consolation that it had been the only thing he could have done, brought no comfort.

"We need to make a fire, get out of these wet things."

She got up and looked around the barn. The floor was packed dirt, they could light a fire in here. At the far end of the small crumbling stone building was some machinery, a rusty plough, not used for a long time. It stood in a wooden stall that was dry and rotting. Firewood. She proceeded to pull it apart and break pieces off, piling them on the dirt floor away from the bales of straw.

Pazu sat up, looked around, dazed, his mind still wasn't running correctly. As well as the man's face there had been that feeling, that awful feeling of joy, _pleasure_ even at holding the gun, firing it and seeing his enemy flee. What was the matter with him? To feel that emotion while killing? He looked at his hands. Still a teenager and now a murderer. He closed his eyes and simply wished it all away.

"Pazu. Get up, help me."

He looked for the gun and the six shell cases and put them away, wrapping them tightly in the oilcloth, guilty about keeping them. He sorted through their things and pulled the poncho and blanket out of the pile, spread them out to dry. They had nothing to eat, but he could at least brew tea, he'd been given some more as part of working for their breakfast yesterday morning. Was it yesterday? Just a day ago? That he'd brought the porridge and they sat on the back of the wagon in the inn yard and talked and smiled, without care? It seemed a year ago. He looked down again at the hands that had held the porridge bowl. Killer's hands.

"Pazu! Wake up! Come on!"

He sorted through the knapsack and pulled out their only cooking pan. He went to the barn door and cracked it open. It was getting dark. The hedge and woodland were close by to the left. In front of him across a sloping field were more hedges. In the misty distance was a church spire, a mile or two away. The rain was heavy and steady, a dull roof of cloud lay across the land. Bad flying weather. He wouldn't want to fly in such weather. He doubted there had been many flying operations today. He listened. No guns. Perhaps the big bombardment that had assisted the enemy army in its attack was over. Perhaps the Restormel artillery was moving up now to new positions. Perhaps the war was already over and they had lost. Perhaps he and Sheeta could just go home and live happily ever after. Perhaps this was merely a dream and he'd wake soon, and release the doves and feed them.

"Are you alright?"

She was behind him, gentle hand on his shoulder. He opened his eyes.

"Yes. Just thinking about the war. We'll be alright here I think, doubt the farmer will come all the way up here in this weather."

He put the cooking pan outside where a steady trickle of rain from the roof would soon fill it. He closed and barred the door. He dragged the plough into the centre of the floor so they could hang their wet clothes on its long curved handle. He built a fire from Sheeta's gathered wood, laying the rest aside as a fuel store. He broke one of the chemical tablets and green flame consumed the dry wood, a strong blaze built up. The wood was very dry, no smoke, which was good. Picking up the grey blanket and draping it over the plough handle he stripped. It wasn't of the least concern to him, he merely turned his back on her and threw everything off. Whether she watched him or not, he didn't care.

She did watch though, and she did care. She would have loved to see him like this at another time, in another mood, but now wasn't right. As beautiful as he was, he clearly wasn't feeling right, he was acting strange.

He pulled the blanket up around his shoulders holding it with one hand and with the other laid out his wet clothes. He squatted and banged the mud off his boots against the plough blade.

"You need to get your wet clothes off. Do it under the poncho if you want."

She took his advice and within a few minutes she handed him a bundle of damp things which he hung beside his. He noticed that she had taken everything off, even her underskirt or bloomers or whatever they were. A week back he'd have been shocked with embarrassment, now it seemed unimportant, it was just laundry.

She pushed her arms through the arm slots of the poncho and pulled a straw bale closer to the fire. She dug in his bag for the tea and his canteen, filling two mugs with water and putting them on the fire to heat. He came and sat next to her.

"We'll stay here tonight and see what the weather is doing in the morning. I don't want to travel in this muck but those men won't fly in it either. I think we put enough miles between us to be safe. For a while."  
"Why are they following us? There is no Laputa now," Sheeta stared into the fire.  
"I expect they are trying to find out who killed Muska and why. They may have found his body."  
"How do they know about us? Did someone on Goliath survive?"  
"Maybe."  
"Maybe Muska survived?"  
"I hope not."

An ugly thought came to her,

"Pazu, only Tanner knows we are heading north."  
"They must have questioned him."  
"He must have told them."  
"He's not so stupid to hold anything back, he wouldn't let them hurt Morwen."  
"Oh, I hope not."  
"We can't worry about everybody."  
"But it's our fault."  
"Sheeta, _it's not_. It's _not_ our fault. It's theirs, Muska's people."

She made tea and they drank it, holding the hot tin mugs cupped in their hands for warmth. Their shoulders and hips touched and they both found comfort in the shared warmth and contact. She stared into the fire and spoke.

"You had to do it, it wasn't like you had any choice."  
"He would have shot me."  
"I know Pazu, I know. I saw his face. It had to happen."  
"I was thinking of you. I couldn't let them take you again."

She took one hand from her mug and placed it on one of his wrists. He went on,

"Thank you for being there. When you put your hand on my shoulder. I knew what I had to do, you… you really helped."  
"I just felt you needed me. I just wanted to tell you I was there."  
"I'm not proud of what I did, Sheeta."  
"But I'm proud of you."

He looked at her. He opened a hand, the hand that hers was touching, and turned it palm upwards, hers slid from his wrist into his waiting palm.

"Don't feel guilty about what you did, Pazu, there's no need. It was their fault, not yours."  
"I killed a man."  
"He would have killed you. Stop blaming yourself."

She squeezed his hand. He managed a small smile.

"That's the first time you've smiled since we had the fight in the back of Hamar's wagon."  
"That was a long time ago."  
"Please don't stop smiling. I know this is horrible, but don't let everything go."  
"Hm, your hair's wet. Wait."

He found a corner of the blanket that he didn't need in order to remain covered. He lifted it and began to dry her hair.

"Mm, thank you. Feels nice."  
"Have you a brush?"  
"In my dress bag."

Pazu got up and went to their bags, he came back, sat down and she brushed her hair. He watched.

"It's a lovely colour."  
"Thanks, but it's a mess. It needs cutting and I need to regrow it," she pulled the brush roughly through the tangles, "Urr, and it needs washing. Yuck. You should see it when it's long. If I put my head back a little I can sit on it. It's lovely."  
"It's lovely now."  
"You're very sweet, but it's not lovely, it's just a mess."

He held out something, a paper bag.

"Anyway, dinner? It's not fish broth or Morwen's cheese but it's all we have."

She dipped her fingers into the bag and picked out a sweet, popping it into her mouth.

"Thank you. Hm, strawberry, my favourite. I love strawberries but the growing season up in Gondoa is never long enough for them to get nice and fat."  
"What's strawberry in Oistrakh-Auera?"  
"_Reustaub_. Red berry."(1)  
"Nice."  
"And," she pulled the sweet from her mouth, "_stimmer_."

The boiled sweet went back in. Pazu stared at where it had gone. He had seen her spit shining on the sweet's red surface, and a primitive urge in him had wanted to reach for it and put it in his own mouth. So he could taste her spit.

"_Huelth_," she said solemnly, pointing at the flames.

Pazu was still staring at her mouth, he could hear the boiled sweet being moved around behind her teeth. He took one for himself. Apple.

"And here, _holoth_," she put her hand on the bale of straw, "_holoth_, gets used for lots of things: straw, hay, animal feed, bedding."  
"I just like hearing you speak it," he said.

She put a hand on the grey wool that covered him.

"_Brockur_."  
"Blanket?"  
"Uh-huh. Also bedding, words can be interchangeable."

She reached for his hand and picked it up.

"_Het._"

Her fingers were cool, slender. He looked at them, there was dirt under her nails and they were badly broken but he still thought they were beautiful fingers. She lifted his hand and separated two of the fingers, held one,

"_Fhell_."  
"_Fhell_?"  
"Hm, finger. And _Fhell-dhu_, great finger, or thumb."

She lay her hand down in his lap, his hand still lay in hers. With her other hand she reached up. Where the blanket was gathered around his neck there was a gap. She pulled at it a little and his shoulder was exposed. She gently touched the tip of one finger to his skin there.

"_Tuothir_."

He noticed her voice, softer, more breathy.

"Shoulder?"  
"Hm."

Two other finger tips joined the first and she lay the pads of the fingers to his skin, moved them in a circular motion.

"_Cuothulu yau tuothir om-e_."

The sound brought a mysterious gentle image into his head: fog against a window pane. Something outside in the fog wanting to come in.

"I caress your shoulder."

She looked into his eyes. He felt like he was falling, like he would go in and never return. There was a little spangle of light dancing there from the flickering flames and her hair, tangled and damaged and dirty though it was, poured around her face like the sunrise. He couldn't say anything, he couldn't do anything, he couldn't move. He didn't want to move. He wanted this vision to go on forever. Her fingers left his shoulder and reached up. One of them, feather light, touched the top of his ear and traced the curve down until it pressed onto the piece of firm skin under it that joined the ear to his neck.

"_Uhr_."

He swallowed.

"Ear."  
"Mm."

Sheeta moved her hand again, the finger tracing slowly down from ear to chin. She pressed two fingers to his chin feeling the bone of his jaw beneath the flesh. When she spoke it was a whisper.

"_Kirin_."

He didn't translate. He didn't want to, he just wanted to hear her voice and feel her touch. In his lap he closed his hand over the one of hers that still lay there. Now she moved her fingers back up his jaw and over his cheek. She let them run through his hair, she played in it gently and loosed some of the tangles.

"_Haleth_."

Pazu wondered what the word for heart was. He could feel his bumping inside him. His heart, her fingers and her eyes were all that remained of the world. Now she moved again, her light touch left his hair and came down over his forehead, pressing the skin. With the very slowest of movements she put her fingers in front of his eye and moved in. He closed his eyes. There came the lightest and coolest of touches to his closed eyelid.

"_Ayr_."

The touch moved to the bridge of his nose and traced the curve down to the tip. One finger gently tapped it a couple of times.

"_Nush_."

He grinned and opened his eyes.

"_Nush?_"  
"Yes. Pretty word, isn't it? You have a very pretty _nush_."

She giggled and the sound made his spirit soar. He heard the last small piece of the boiled sweet chuckle against her teeth, inside her mouth. He wanted to be that sweet. Her finger left the tip of his nose and came lower, scooping the hollow above his top lip. He kept still, rigid even, except for his heart, and his breath which drew in and flowed out like a river in warm, restless, flood. Her finger touched his lips. Her touch was so light now that if he closed his eyes it would be like imagination, like memory.

"_Mohre_."

She had moved her face very close, and held her head a little on one side, tilted as though asking a question. He still hadn't moved. Her brown red hair was exactly like the firelight, alive, glowing. Like warm air, he wanted to put his mouth in it and breathe in deeply.

"Lips?"  
"No. Mouth."

Her cool finger ran along his lips and back again. Slightly insistent it pushed between them.

"_Leh_."

It pushed in. In surprise Pazu opened his mouth a little. The pad of her finger ran along the top ridge of his lower teeth.

"_Teki._"

He smiled again at the sound.

"_Teki_."

Another cute word. As he spoke it he bit slightly on her finger and his pronunciation made his tongue come forward. It touched her finger. Instead of withdrawing, as he thought it might, the finger pressed in, passed his teeth and found his tongue. She patted the top of it several times as though it were a puppy's head.

"_Loomb_."

She sat, half turned towards him, her face just a hand's breadth away. She could feel him, his tense body, taut like a mandolin string. Her finger in his mouth. Her heart too was aching, surging, crashing inside her

_if it doesn't happen now, it never will_

She withdrew her finger. The end was wet. She brought it up to her own mouth. His eyes widened, his mouth was still open. She was… she was going to… his eyes stared at the finger tip. The thudding of his heart in his chest seemed louder than the rain. She looked into his eyes as she put her finger tip up to her own mouth, flickered out her tongue and licked off what was on it. She smiled at him.

_"Ethu."  
_"Lick."  
"Yes."  
"Sheeta…"  
"Shush. No more talking. One last word."  
"What?"  
_"Kaesu."  
"Kaesu?"  
_"Mm."  
"What is that?"  
"I'll show you."

She was so close when she spoke these last words that he could feel her breath. Her free hand fluttered down and lay on the straw, limp. Her other remained held by his, in his lap. She came closer.

She moved so that her lips flickered against him, the lightest, the sweetest of touches, lighter even than her finger. Her breath mingled with his, she smelled the scent of apples. There she hesitated a moment, just savouring his closeness. Then she closed that last tiny space and pressed herself to him. He closed his eyes. He felt warmth and he felt how amazingly soft she was, softer than he could have imagined. It wasn't like being touched by a person at all, but by a spirit, by the fragrance of a flower. He breathed in and her smell filled his mind. And strawberries. There was the scent of strawberries mingled with her smell, _reustaub_, he thought, _reustaub stimmer_. He lifted one hand and it found the poncho which he pushed against and came to rest on her side, low down.

She drew back, and they both opened their eyes.

_"Kaesu."_

For a minute nothing at all happened except two minds, two hearts looked into each other. He noticed she had a faint smile on her lips. Strawberry lips. He whispered.

"How do I say – 'I like that'?"  
_"Ul tu om."  
__"Lucita, ul tu om."  
"__Paetsu, kaesu om-e, kaesu om-e."_

Pazu moved his head forward, his eyes questioning – _is this right?_ She sat, waiting for him. He came close and at the last moment saw an odd expression on her face, a mild unease. Then his forehead bumped hers and she bounced off him. She giggled, and so did he.

"Sorry."  
_"Tsuru."_

She tilted her head back and laughed. He chuckled.

"Try again."

He came again, nudging closer, not very sure. When he was almost touching her he tilted his head back a little, it felt awkward, his neck was in all the wrong shape. He closed the tiny gap and their noses bumped, squashed. Her eyes widened and she sat, her shoulders shaking in silent laughter. He looked at her, ashamed and foolish for a moment, then he too burst into laughter and dropped his head down into her lap, his laughing grew louder. She put her head back and howled.

"_Paetsu taeg-dhu!_ You great clumsy lump!"

He sat up, indignant.

"Alright, you do it then, clever pants!"

She put out a finger and pressed it to his lips – shhh. She came to him, slowly but with purpose. When she was very close, almost touching he laughed again, making her laugh.

"Pazu!"  
"Can't help it! It's funny!"  
"Shush! How can a girl concentrate?"  
"Alright. I'll stop. Promise."  
"Promise?"  
"Mm."

He sniggered, then cleared his throat.

"Alright, right. Ready now. Honest."

She sat a moment, inches away. She raised one eyebrow and said,

"Like this."

and tilted her head to one side.

_that's how you do it. so your noses don't bump.  
_  
Again he felt her mouth, how soft and warm she was. For a moment there was no movement, just sweet pressure, just her, so very close. All thoughts of laughter died away.

_why is this so nice? why do I feel this way? it's just two parts of our faces touching._

Then something was happening, her mouth wasn't just still and warm and soft and against him but it was moving, changing shape, pressing more. Her lips parted and in doing so parted his. He felt something so strange, so odd that he nearly pulled back. At first his mind didn't know what it was, a stupid - _taeg_ - part of him thought it was the boiled sweet in her mouth, but it moved, and it had some_thing_, some urgency about it, it came into his mouth, gently pushing his lips further apart and found his tongue. Then he knew, this wasn't like any other kiss he'd experienced. His father had kissed him on his cheek or his forehead, his mother had too, and rarely on his lips also, but never like this. Her tongue, this was her tongue. He wasn't sure what to make of it. He couldn't decide if it was nice or not, but he let his jaw open a little more just to see what she would do. The warm strawberry tasting thing inside him ran along his own tongue. Moisture. He had looked at the boiled sweet and wondered what her moisture would taste like. Now he knew.

His breath poured in and out through his nose, the smell of her was making strange things happen. Very odd things. Things elsewhere in his body that alarmed him, frightened him. Something powerful began to happen that he had only ever experienced in the dark of the night, alone in his bed, or even more strangely first thing in the morning some days when he woke. Something fired off in his head, a thing like a warning, an alarm. An instinct that told him that this was what should only be done by married people, and that babies happened this way. It made him suddenly pull back.

He opened his eyes. Her face was there, her eyes open. He felt embarrassed, awkward, rude. But when he looked at her, he felt calmer. She merely sat, an open look on her face, a slight smile, even a question.

"Sheeta…"  
"Mm?"  
"Is this…?"  
"_Kaesu_."  
"What is _kaesu_?"  
"A kiss. Just a kiss."  
"Oh."  
"Didn't you like it?"  
"Uh. I don't know. I felt…"  
"How did you feel?"

Her eyes sparkled at him, he felt like she was teasing, as though she knew, knew how he felt and was playing games. He felt as though she should be holding him, to stop him moving away. But she didn't, her hands lay relaxed beside her. The one holding his didn't hold tight, it just lay there. It was like… like she knew she didn't have to hold him here, she knew he wouldn't want to pull away. And that, more than anything else, calmed him.

"Um. Something…"  
"Well, that's good. It's good that you felt something," her smile broadened, her face lit up, "it means you're not dead."

Now he smiled. How could he not? With her face looking like that, so close?

"You made me feel…," this was impossible, "like I shouldn't feel."  
"I don't think we are getting very far, are we? Did you like it or not? Say not if you want, I won't be offended. Really."

How could he refuse a girl who said things like this? How could she be like this? She was his age, he envied her, she seemed to have learned so much more than him.

"Your tongue. That felt – funny."  
"You didn't like it?"  
"No… but. I didn't expect it."

She smiled again, so prettily, she sat back and sipped her tea. It was as if this wasn't important to her. But to him, the whole world was made of _right now_, as if, what he said or did now would cause a corner in their lives. They would either turn the corner and go down another street, or they would carry on, and he'd look back at the missed turning, and an opportunity would pass. He thought they might come to this corner again but next time it would be different and the simple fact that they had not taken it this first time would change the flavour of it when they went down it the next time. That was all his mind could tell him.

He wanted to turn the corner. He felt she wanted to lead him down that side street. But he was afraid, nervous.

"Would you like to do it again?"

She was at the corner, beckoning him to turn it with her. She held out her hand to him, encouraging him to walk with her. He saw all this, his heart felt it, but something in his ignorant upbringing made him want to stay.

"Will we…?"  
"What Pazu? Ask me."  
"Is this how babies are made?"

_my god I asked her. ground open and swallow me. please_.

His face went red.

The thing that stuck with him most about her answer, that stayed with him the longest, was that she didn't laugh. She merely smiled, that same gentle, open half questioning smile. Her eyes didn't tease, her voice didn't mock.

"No, Pazu, babies are not made by _kaesu_. A lot more needs to happen for that. Tonight, no babies. I promise. Tonight, just _kaesu,_ if you want to."  
"What's round this corner?"  
"What?"  
"I'm sorry. It's like I'm standing at a corner. And you are too. It feels, like a choice, I can walk round this corner with you down a new road, or we can go straight on."

She looked serious now.

"Which would you like to do?"  
"Take my hand."

She lifted her free hand and placed it on his, the one that rested on her side. She lifted it and held it, stroking the back with her thumb.

"Like this?"  
"Yes. Lead me. Sheeta, lead me round the corner."  
_"Paetsu kaesu om-e"_

_- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -_

_14 - 15 March 200_

_(1)Lots of Gondoan words in this one, most of which I translate as we go. But I list them here anyway and have added the new ones to the dictionary in the forum._

_Ayr : eye  
Brockur : blanket, bedding  
Cuothulu : caress, stroke  
Ethu : lick  
Fhell : finger  
Fhell-dhu : great finger, or thumb  
Haleth : hair  
Het : hand  
Holoth : straw, hay, animal feed, bedding  
Huelth : fire  
Kaesu : kiss  
Kaesu om-e : kiss me  
Kirin : chin  
Leh : lips  
Loomb : tongue  
Mohre : mouth  
Nush : nose  
Reu : red  
__Reustaub : strawberry  
Staub : berry  
Stimmer : sweet (confectionery)  
Tuothir : shoulder  
Teki : teeth  
Tsuru : sorry  
Tsuru-dhu : very sorry (or a more formal expression)  
Uhr : ear  
Ul tu om : I like that  
Ul tu-dhu om : I like that a lot_

_For author notes about Chapter Twenty One, please see my forum (click on my pen name)_


	23. Chapter 22 : Surun

**Chapter Twenty Two – Surun**

Pazu pulled up his breeches and buttoned up. He made his way out of the stand of trees to the lane, climbing the fence. That was the second time today, eating only mushrooms and berries and other wild plants Sheeta picked didn't agree with him, but it was all they'd had for three days now. He looked at the brown leaves plastered damp to the lane, autumn was coming, the first leaves falling. Those still on the trees were edged with brown, life was receding back into the branches, the trunks, the spines of plants, preparing for sleep. Winter was coming. They had managed to find barns or sheds the last three days and had been lucky, but today it was definitely colder. Brighter, sharper, colder. The kind of day you'd expect to see a hoar frost at dawn, making the world white and mysterious. Yesterday it had drizzled all day and been thoroughly depressing, nothing worse than being wet and not being able to get properly dry.

Since _that_ night in the barn they had moved early, as soon as there was some light. Mists were common now as autumn drew on and that was good, they provided good cover. In the middle of the day they would rest, in a farm building if they could or in woodland if nothing else was available. They would cook and eat whatever they could find, and sleep. Then, at dusk they would break camp and press on through the night, stopping again in the small hours to rest more if a suitable shelter was available.

Always north. East and north.

They were filthy, muddy, wet and they stank. They looked like two vagabonds but Sheeta never once complained. He was so proud of her, she seemed willing to put up with anything. Yesterday had been the worst, in that foul drizzle they had come over a hill and their lane intersected a main road. Through the poor visibility they had seen something on the road, it looked _odd. _As they got closer they saw that the paved highway, running between high hedges, was packed with traffic, thousands of people, all heading south. They stopped at the road junction and watched. The column of people was never ending, to the north it stretched up the hill out of sight over the horizon, a mile away. To the south it disappeared around a curve in the road. The people just kept coming. Women carrying babies, old men, families, crying children, even mixed among them were a few wounded soldiers, limping and with rifles and equipment cast away. People pushed wheelbarrows piled with their belongings, or prams. The fortunate few had carts and horses although these all looked thin and worn, near collapse. Every face was the same: blank, drawn, haggard, exhausted, broken. At the side turning where they stood a man was sitting, back to the hedge, head down limp on his chest. Sheeta bent down and shook his shoulder. Getting no reaction she lifted his chin. His blank eyes and swollen lips crawled with flies. She cried out and jumped back, seeking Pazu's arms for comfort, wiping her hand on her leg.

Their route lay across this road but they couldn't get over, the mass of refugees was too much. A motor car came down the hill behind them and stopped at the junction. It was a grey painted military car, splashed with mud and with both front fenders torn off. Sheeta saw that there were several bullet holes through the canvas tilt. Three soldiers sat in it.

"Out the way, army messages to deliver. Move! MOVE!"

The driver eased forward into the crowd, so tightly packed was the mass that the vehicle actually pushed people aside with its wheels, people sluggishly stood, looking with blank eyes as the car pushed forward and joined the river. It slowly made its way down the road southwards, its horn honking continuously.

"Let's go."

Pazu led Sheeta away back up the hill. They wasted most of that morning getting across the line of the highway. Eventually, after following side lanes for two hours they came to a canal and followed the towpath eastwards. This passed under the main road and they looked up to see the endless stream of humanity pouring across the bridge above.

In the water of the canal Pazu saw two dark shapes floating. They looked like bundles of clothing. He took her hand, turned his face away and pressed on. This couldn't go on much longer. They were filthy, exhausted and hungry. They needed somewhere to stop for a couple of days, to get clean, eat properly and sleep.

--I--  
---o-o-oOo-o-o---  
I I

The field was packed with tents, army tents, row upon row, laid out at military intervals, in lines as straight as dominos. The soldiers went about their off duty tasks: cooking, cleaning equipment, playing cards, writing letters. For them this was their last relaxation before the push. Even the damp dull conditions couldn't depress the eagerness that lay over this huge camp, an eagerness to see the enemy and show him that Numenaor's men were nothing like the boys of Marinaer. Their officers had told them tomorrow. Tomorrow it would begin. The largest army Numenaor had ever sent to fight in a foreign country would advance tomorrow, on foot, on horseback, by armoured steam landship and by air. It was by air that Numenaor would make her presence felt.

Above the fields that air presence was at work even now, small light corvettes buzzed to and fro high up to the west, keeping the enemy airships away from the army gathered below. Beneath and eastward of the corvettes the larger but still nimble frigates cruised, ready in support should any enemy craft approach.

The slim silver aircraft negotiated the cleared air lane between the patrolling frigates and descended, passing low over the tented fields, banking for an approach to the grass airstrip. In the cabin the man with black hair lay aside the paper and tilted his head down, peering over his half-moon spectacles at the scene below. A strangely bookish action, as though he were a mild old schoolteacher and he'd seen a boy at the back of class talking. He watched the tents sliding below the aircraft. He didn't need to count them, or even estimate how many, or guess at the size of force gathered here in the stubble fields between Princeport and Stoak. Despite the bookish appearance of his spectacles, Colonel Surun wasn't the least bit mild, or remotely like a schoolteacher. The Colonel knew that gathered tightly in this triangle of land were six infantry divisions, two cavalry divisions, three armoured steam landship regiments – ninety six mechanical nightmares the Restormellian army had no knowledge of - and over two hundred heavy artillery pieces. More than eighty thousand men. He knew the name of each unit that was to be hurled, tomorrow, at dawn against the enemy. It was his job to know.

Surun folded the newspaper, flicked a crease out of the arm of his green suit and lightly held the arms of his seat; landings in these skidplanes could be a little rough.

The steel bird touched down at the edge of the field and slid, its skates spewing dust and stones, a hundred feet until it came to rest near a green steamcar hissing gently by the gate. A tall thin man in a dark coat, round hat and dark spectacles stepped from the car to the skidplane door and held it open. The man in the green suit stepped out. He paused, looking around him, pulled down his suit cuffs in a sharp almost nervous movement and walked towards the waiting car. The tall man and a second, bigger man with a ginger moustache who had deplaned behind Colonel Surun, got in the car. It sped silently away.

Major General Beauhen stood, his back to the room, arms behind him, tapping his swagger stick in the palm of his gloved left hand. Below on the manor house drive, he watched a group of army drivers chatting to a young girl. She had come from the village to deliver milk. The subalterns gathered around her, vying to impress.

_enjoy your lovers games boys, some of you will be dead tomorrow_

Beauhen spoke, his back to the room.

"I cannot divert a single corvette, not one cavalry patrol, not even an infantry platoon to assist."  
"Major General, I don't believe you have quite grasped the gravity of this situation."

The voice behind him was cool, laconic, infuriatingly offhand.

Beauhen turned around. The man who had spoken sat, relaxed in a wing backed chair on the far side of the large map table, his legs crossed, a cigarette dangling insolently from his limp white hand. Along both sides of the table orderlies stood, and behind them, against the walls of the large elegant drawing room, a forest of medals and ribbons and epaulettes was attached to the front of a herd of senior officers.

_like barnacles on a ships arse_, Beauhen thought.

The Major General looked at the green suited man. His un-military mop of shaggy black hair, the effeminate suit, the foppish red bow tie. The man looked like some rakish beau ready to stroll in a Sunday park.

_I bet he likes his boys_, Beauhen thought, _the man's an insult to military operations  
_  
"Colonel, it is you who has not _quite _grasped things. I am in command of the largest military operation our nation has undertaken. Tomorrow our forces, land and air, will smash into the left flank of the enemy assault and roll him up and kick him off the end of the Greycastle coaling piers. I cannot detach even the smallest unit to go swanning off playing wet-nurse to your errant school children. It is out of the question."

The green suited man leaned forward, resting one thin elbow on the rosewood table by his side. His thumb elegantly flicked cigarette ash onto the Major General's carpet. He had been provided with a silver ashtray but studiously ignored it.

"Major General, these _errant school children_ may be the key to unlock for us a military power so great that with it, Numenaor could destroy Restormel's entire army without a single one of your precious soldiers even stepping out of his tent. I'm speaking of an airship of some kind that destroyed Goliath in five minutes. A force that can build mechanical fighting machines, just one of which laid waste to half of Tepis Fortress in half an hour. The girl was seen _speaking_ to the machine. It's likely she was issuing commands to it. This girl, this boy, were being pursued by Colonel Muska when he died. Given the reports from Goliath survivors and the Tepis garrison commander I assert that it is vital that we find them. More vital than any," he waved his hand gently towards the map table, "games you and your soldiers may have planned for tomorrow."  
"I've read the reports and they conclude nothing that cannot be explained by enemy sabotage."  
"Take a look at the photographs and drawings that Colonel Muska recorded of the mechanical man at Tepis. Look at the scientists reports. That machine wasn't made of any material we know. A form of ceramic armour that can withstand heavy calibre shells is not the work of Restormellian agents."

Beauhen walked around the map table, his ample stomach preceding him. On it wooden blocks outlined a large salient in the north-west corner of Marinaer filled with red markers. The blue markers of Marinaen units were scattered to the south of these. On the coast, in the north-east around Princeport and Stoak was clustered a huge grouping of green wood blocks.

The Major General stood before the green-suited man's chair.

"Whether that is the case or not, Colonel, the mechanical man isn't any use to me now. We seem to have – hm," he cleared his throat, "destroyed this invincible mechanism. And this ghost-airship of immense power may as well be at the south pole for all the help it will be in this war. I fight tomorrow," He cast a hand back, gesturing at the table, "In a week this will be over. Then your Agency can approach the War Department and ask for whatever resources it needs. But right now, if you'll excuse me, I'm rather busy."  
"It seems probable, from their known movements, that the girl and the boy are making for the border. Right towards your little party tomorrow. It would be extremely, hm, how may I best put this? _Inconvenient_ for you, Major General, if they were to be killed in the coming fighting."  
"One thing you don't do, _Colonel_, is make veiled threats to me regarding my operations. And in war civilians die. Regrettable but unavoidable."

Beauhen turned to an orderly.

"Tell Colonel Surun's driver that the Colonel will be right down."

The tall man stood. He took a step to the map table.

"The Agency will file a report on how _most helpful_ the army has been," he smiled, exposing even white teeth, "Enjoy playing with your toy soldiers, Beauhen. And your retirement. In the next war the Agency will be in command."

Surun drew on his cigarette and lowered his white hand. He stubbed it out on the map table and left the crumpled stained stub on one of the Major General's green wood blocks.

--I--  
---o-o-oOo-o-o---  
I I

It was mid-morning, the sun had burned away the mist and the sky was clear for the first time in several days. Good flying weather. They needed to get into cover and lay up until dark. Pazu looked at the landscape around him, the same world of farms, fields and woodland. He had no idea where he was. Assuming they had averaged fifteen miles a day since leaving the train they were now a good sixty miles from where they had been chased by the men in suits. The thing was that other than it being a night's slow travel from Rutsford, he had no idea where they were when they'd left the train.

They might be eighty or ninety miles north of Rutsford but knowing that was little help because they didn't know how far it was to the border. It seemed that all the signs at road junctions had been removed, they'd seen none for days. Taken down to confuse the invaders Pazu assumed. Other than the compass which led them always to the north and east, they were lost.

Pazu needed a town name and an idea of how far that town was from the border. He would have to risk going into a town and asking questions or buying a paper.

Three times that morning they'd hidden under hedges or trees when the sound of airships came near. The first time had been a flight of the small Marinaer scouts that reminded them of Dola's flaptors, they had slender fast beating wings and buzzed like wasps. Six of them passed over very low heading west. Later they had heard gunfire and seen a larger ship, apparently stationary some miles off, three smaller vessels buzzed around it cruising higher in a protective screen. The artillery of the big ship fired down at something on the ground. And lastly, the thing that had finally decided for them that it was best to seek shelter and stay hidden during daylight, a medium sized ship had come over very low, surprising them with its sudden appearance. From under a bush they had noticed that it looked lopsided, crumpled down one side and it seemed to fly crabwise and very slowly. One set of airscrews were not turning and the remainder seemed to be running on full power straining to keep the thing aloft. The motors pulsed roughly, erratically. It dipped low over woodland to the south and was lost to sight.

He had to get them to cover, to rest before they collapsed from exhaustion. Or were seen.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

_14 - 16 March 2007 _

_For author notes about Chapter Twenty Two, please see my forum (click on my pen name)_


	24. Chapter 23 : Battle

**Chapter Twenty Three - Battle  
**  
Captain Zommel, the battery commander, pulled on his boots, buttoned up his tunic and accepted a cup of coffee from his orderly. He ducked out of his tent and walked down to the command dugout to hear the latest reports. To his right the line of crew tents was dull in the pre-dawn half light, the horse and limber lines beyond them invisible. To his left the gun line was indistinct except for the six fingers of the gun barrels pointing skywards, silhouetted against the pale dying night. Below the gun barrels all was hidden in the gloom, only the occasional shout from a gunner at work came across the wet chill night-grass of the field. Yesterday they had bounded forward some fifteen miles from their positions on the Restormellian border to here, on the outskirts of Greycastle town. Zommel expected to be conducting fire missions against targets south of the town today, retreating enemy traffic columns most probably. There didn't seem to be much fight in these people, one good hard punch over the border in the first two days and they had crumbled.

When he first heard the low drone of airscrews he paid little attention, it was probably one of their pre-dawn patrols going south to photograph enemy positions. He stepped down into the dugout and greeted the telephone operators and his second in command, Lieutenant Hoffer. Half way through discussing the night's communications with Hoffer, Zommel stopped paying attention to the conversation and started paying attention to the hum of airscrews. He noticed them getting louder, it was either a large ship far off or a medium one close by, certainly no photographic scout. He looked up. In the east the sky was paling and the hills of the upper valley in which Greycastle lay were moving. He frowned. He was familiar with the terrain, he'd studied maps and sand models enough times in the weeks before the war. There was a large distinctive ridge across the head of the valley, slab-sided and scarred by the mines, the piles of spoil. Yet this morning it was moving.

"Air alert! Sound the alarm!"

He turned to one of his operators, "Get me regimental headquarters at once!"

The strident clanging of the alarm bell brought the battery to life, gunners ran to the dugouts and the maxim gun crews swung their weapons skywards, checking bullet belts and pulling on steel hats. It began at the far end of the field, an orange burst, silent and pretty, blossoming like a huge flower, blooming, growing and sprouting, another grew in the grass next to it, impossibly bright, as big as a house, further orange blooms walked down the field, their roots digging deep into the wet soil and hurling it up and outwards in powerful cascades. The sound of their sudden creation rolled down the valley in a series of loud barks, each enough to numb the senses.

"Is the line to regiment open?"  
"Yes sir."

Zommel grabbed the headset,

"Sir, third battery here at map reference F233. Air attack, from the east. A cruiser, possibly bigger."  
"Can you identify?"

The maxim guns to either side of the dugout spoke, the noise of their chattering and the roar of the exotic orange blooms growing rapidly down the field, garbled the conversation.

"Say again?"  
"Identify the enemy vessel!"

Zommel looked up over the parapet and saw hell. The whole ridge of the top of the valley seemed to have torn itself from the earth, risen into the dawn sky and come down upon him. It was huge. And low. He couldn't see both ends of it without turning his head. From the vast black bulk of the belly of the thing gun turrets hung and turned and spat flame, on its outer flanks air defence barbettes swung from side to side alert for enemy aircraft. Another big vessel was more distant coming down the far side of the valley. As the shells struck they tore the earth and the soil moaned and writhed, convulsed and leapt. His battery's left hand gun position vanished completely, small unidentifiable black pieces whirling upwards and spinning away into the dawn. The second gun dugout took a shell beside it and the huge artillery piece jumped, actually jumped in the air like a startled thing and flipped over on its side, laying down like a tired dog. The iron shod wheel, eight feet in diameter came spinning over Zommel's head, thrown like a child's toy. He heard it strike the ground behind him and go bouncing down the slope towards the road. The shell bursts walked down his gun line, obliterating it. His command vanished before his eyes.

"My god. It's Leviathan!"  
"What? It can't be this far north! They have no base up here!"  
"It's Leviathan I'm telling you!"  
"Get a grip, Captain, that's impossible!"  
"If you don't believe me, come and look for yourself! I need air support now, and the batteries to the west will, it's heading west."

The secondary turrets clustered low on Leviathans starboard flank were brought to bear on the battery support lines. The row of tents vanished in an instant, burning canvas fluttering, the horses whinnied and screamed and writhed and lay still, the wood and iron of their limbers flying two fields away.

"Down, get down, get into cover!"

The captain dived into the bottom of the dugout and his telephone line went dead, torn in a dozen places. The air defence machine guns sited either side of the command dugout was a standard deployment, a sensible tactic to preserve the command personnel from scout attack. Maxim guns were useless against this gigantic attacker, all they did was draw it's attention. The two forward gun turrets swung down and fired a salvo at the machine guns and the trench system between them. As the whole dugout was instantly obliterated, Zommel, Hoffer and the other eight men of the battery headquarters didn't feel a thing.

--I--  
---o-o-oOo-o-o---  
I I

The men lay on their fronts on the grass. They had been here an hour now and the dew had formed on them, on their rifle barrels and on their leather equipment belts. They lay in lines, by platoons, by companies, by regiments. Across the fields and in the woodlands, the plantations and the coverts. Each man was alone, thinking his own thoughts. Thinking of wife, or lover, or mother, or speaking with a protecting spirit, seeking private forgiveness for past acts.

The artillery bombardment had been going an hour now. The smaller guns, the light fast gallopers were sited directly behind the infantry start line and sent their light shells over clattering like hail. These shells were too small to destroy dugouts or buildings but were shrapnel rounds, each steel case would airburst on arrival a few tens of feet above the ground spewing out a hundred steel bullets. Their purpose was to kill and maim anyone or anything that moved above ground and once those targets were eliminated they denied the enemy the ability to move at all. The medium guns were firing their big shells into the enemy forward positions, destroying communications, defences and weapons pits. The heavy guns, sited miles back, sent their dustbin sized shells spinning over, each whirring and moaning like a train. These went far into the enemy rear positions hitting headquarters, artillery, supply dumps, transport columns, troop forming up areas.

Some of the infantrymen looked up. Above the zone filled with shells where nothing could fly, higher in the dawn sky the airships moved. Light scouts covering the army as it prepared to go, medium bomb vessels droning over in groups to attack the enemy front line. And somewhere out there, far ahead, miles away over the hills, sowing destruction behind the enemy left flank, were the two battle cruiser groups, Leviathan and Thunderer, each accompanied by their two cruisers and squadron of frigates. Thunderer had been rushed into battle with her shakedown trials incomplete, it was well known that a number of dockyard hands were aboard her, finishing off vital systems. But for this offensive, without Goliath, Thunderer was needed.

Suddenly the Numenaorian guns fell silent, the artillery bombardment ceased. The air seemed loud just from the silence, the quiet offended the ears. Men who had been speaking aloud to themselves suddenly ceased talking, self conscious. For a while there was nothing, nothing but the wet land and the lightening sky in the east. Then the whistles blew. At first distant on the right flank then coming closer, the platoon commanders stood and blew on their whistles. Just here, in the copse of silver birch, before the signal came, before the men stood and walked and went to kill, there was a brief sound, a sound that mocked the men and the war, mocked the whole reason they were here. Just before it happened a blackbird sang. High up in the birch trees it sat seeing the dawn and driven only by what it knew, rejoicing in a new day, it sang. A beautiful sound it was, the song fluttering and growing, dipping and pleasant.

Then the whistles, then the green coated men standing up in lines, then the clenched jaws and fists around rifles, then despite the cold, the sweat under armpits, then the first step and the second, backs bent, kept low, up the slope and over the grassy ridge and down towards destiny.

--I--  
---o-o-oOo-o-o---  
I I

Private Hjutens had lied. Lied about his age. Lots of his factory mates had too. Everyone knew you had to be eighteen to get in the army, so he had lied and told the recruiting officer he was eighteen. Easy. He was fit, strong, alert, good eyesight, so he was accepted. Some of his factory mates were too. The army was much better than working in the soap factory with its endless mindless labour, heat and stink. When the first hints of war got mentioned in the papers he and his friends had discussed it and then, one evening after a few drinks several of them had built up a group courage and gone to the town recruiting office and become soldiers. Hjutens enjoyed it, out in the fresh air, warm clothes, laundry done for you, food not too bad, always on the move from place to place, and best of all, the girls. Everywhere they went the girls liked soldiers, each town they marched through they would run beside them and give them flowers and kisses and in some towns, when they camped for the night, much more. Oh, yes, much more. He smiled. In a years time there might be a few little baby Hjutenses bawling in those towns. Yes, the girls loved a soldier.

He had joined a machine gun company because they did less drill, marched less and their heavy Maxim guns were carried on the backs of steam lorries. The machine gun corps also had more technical work, more plotting of lanes of fire, angles of enfilade and other clever stuff, it was good in the army. Not only did you exercise the old man in your trousers but your brain too.

This morning the sixteen year old Hjutens was on duty with his gun team and three other Maxims from his company protecting the left flank of an infantry battalion that had been allotted a defensive line along a canal. They knelt in their dugouts behind their sandbags and watched the mist on the canal and the far bank, indistinct in the murk. The bridge had been blown and there was no easy way to cross unless the enemy had boats or airships and in the last few days the Marinaen army had demonstrated that it had few of either, or rather it lacked the intelligence to use them correctly. He and his platoon had kept count of the number of Marinaen airships they had seen shot down. Sixty seven. In a week. Sixty seven shot down ships. And that was just the ones they had seen, in their small sector. The enemy seemed clueless, sending out single craft or pairs on patrols and getting jumped by half squadrons of Restormel craft, six at a time.

Hjutens felt bad about it some days, this war was bloody stupid anyway, the Restormel Government had good claim to the coalfields going back fifty years to an old partition of land under a previous royal marriage. Why the Marinaen King insisted on fighting such an obviously stronger nation baffled him. So this stupid war had resulted and because of stupid kings and stupid politicians Marinaen men died. But Hjutens wasn't that concerned. The more Marinaen men that died, the more Marinaen girls would be without lovers and that was where he came in, he was sure a lot of unhappy girls would need comforting when this was over. Oh, yes, lots of comforting.

The artillery bombardment had started at four in the morning, an hour and a half before dawn. Hjutens didn't know the enemy even had any artillery left, let alone in range of them, this far to the west of Greycastle. But evidently they had because the barrage was heavy and relentless. Their sector seemed to be targeted by light guns firing airburst shrapnel which was no problem because the sandbagged earth covered roofs of the machine gun nests kept that out easily. A few mediums came over mixed in with the light stuff and one round dropped very close, maybe even on the right hand gun of their platoon. He could hear someone screaming for a few minutes but he shut the sound out of his mind and it eventually stopped. He could hear heavies coming over though and their dull roaring bursts behind him. Seemed like the people up at HQ, a mile behind him, were getting their arses kicked.

The disquieting thing, the thing that bothered him most was the lack of shells flying the other way, the Restormel guns seemed to be silent and that was odd. In the past few days any movement by the enemy drew down upon his head a quick reaction from the Restormellian gunners, their air spotters always patrolling above the battlefield protected by the ever present scoutships. But this morning, nothing.

At five thirty the barrage ceased and a strange quiet filled the air. The artillery was still coming over but had set a new range and was now lobbing shells well behind them. Oh, well, the boys in reserve needed waking up anyway, lazy buggers. Hjutens and his gun crew crawled out and manned their gun, digging it out of the fallen earth and repairing their emplacement, working quickly and quietly, all by the field manual. A call along the line for a doctor went past, the crew of number one gun had been blown to pieces and next to them curses from the number three gun pit revealed their gun was damaged and wouldn't fire. Two guns lost, two left. Their captain split the crew of number three, allocating them between number two and four as extra ammunition carriers. Rumours came along the line that the infantry to their right had suffered many casualties in their open rifle pits.

Hjutens looked down his gun sight swinging the barrel left and right, sweeping the far bank of the canal. Anyone who tried to cross here would need a boat, and Hjutens would be making life very unpleasant for them.

Then he heard the noise. A faint clanking sound, like a hundred handsome cab tyres over cobbles. He listened carefully trying to put a finger on it. It also sounded a little like the journeymen working in the brewery next door to the soap factory, unloading their steel beer drums that clanked and banged on the stone yard. But you'd need fifty journeymen unloading all at once to produce this sound and he doubted very much that anyone was delivering beer the other side of the canal at this time of day. The clanking and clattering got louder and behind that sound was something else, a rhythmic swishing noise, a hissing. He knew what that was, a steam power plant. But the only steam vehicles his army used were transport vehicles; lorries or artillery tractors, nothing that would be near the front line.

Then he saw it. He saw it clearly but he still didn't know what it was he was seeing. A wide low dun coloured thing it was, like a giant turtle or a giant upturned tin bath. It moved towards the canal. It was plated at the sides and had some kind of skirting that ran along near the ground. On top was a short armoured trunk, out of which steam issued in busy, purposeful snorts. On the roof were vision slits and armour glass periscopes just like the turret of an ironclad.

"Enemy to the front! Range two hundred!"

The call went along the line and some way to his right the chatter of rifle fire began, he could see nothing out of his dugout's vision slit except a hundred yards of canal bank and the giant beetle.

"Fire, dammit! Open fire!"

Eye to his gunsight, finger disengaging the lock, Hjutens squeezed the trigger, he held it for three seconds, let off, checked his aim, held down again for two seconds and let off again. Every fourth bullet was a tracer, trailing a red line behind it as the chemically coloured propellant burned. He saw his shots hit the tin bath and bounce up, winging away into the darkness with a sound like pebbles on a tin roof. He squeezed again for three seconds, swinging the gun barrel a little to see if angled shots had any effect. The bullets bounced from the plating of the thing, each one leaving an orange glow where it struck and curving away in lazy arcs overhead as their energy expended, like children's fireworks. He kept firing as the thing crept up to the canal bank, in short controlled bursts so as not to overheat the barrel or wear the rifling. To his right he could hear number two gun chattering away as well, but he couldn't see its target.

"Ammo out! Fresh belt!"

More ammunition was loaded and the second man banged his right shoulder.

"Loaded!"

Hjutens kept firing but he soon realized he was wasting his time. He was a good aimer, good eyesight. He'd been made gunner after all. He swung his gun up and down, left and right. The big steam powered tin bath sat on the far side of the canal for five minutes doing nothing. Hjutens aimed at the side plating, the hanging protective skirts, the armoured trunk, the periscope glasses. He even managed to get a shot or two into the vision slits or ventilation trunks or whatever they were but this seemed to bother the tin bath not at all. And then, it moved. It began to creep forward. It reached the canal bank and it's nose hung over the water, further and further, sticking it's nose out like a cat investigating a pond full of goldfish. To his right some way off a series of explosions came, dull rumbles, the shouts of men.

The young machine gunner rattled off short controlled bursts at the thing, trying even to skim shots off the water like stones to get ricochet hits up against the underside.

"Ammo out! Fresh belt!"

Pause. Click of the belt, bang on the shoulder.

"Loaded!"

He didn't fire. There was nothing to fire at. The armoured front of the thing was impervious. They needed medium artillery for this, a good sized shell slap on the thing's back would do it. But the Restormellian artillery this morning was silent. In awe Hjutens watched the huge thing hang out over the canal bank at an impossible angle, balancing like some freakish fairground trick. Then the nose began to tilt, it dipped slowly down, the bulk of the thing hanging beyond it's centre of gravity off the canal bank. It swung down and with a titanic splash struck the canal and sank under. It moved forward burrowing under water, sending a bore like wave across to the far bank. The long turtle like body slid down and Hjutens saw the ventilation trunks and vision slits slide down retracting flush with the carapace. He squeezed off a few bursts at the back of the thing, testing the roof armour but got the same result. It was as he was watching his shots deflect over that he saw the second one. It was behind the first and staggered a little left approaching the canal.

"There's two of them! Bullets having no effect!"  
"Keep firing damn you. We must hold this canal line!"  
"What with?"  
"Shut your mouth and keep firing."

Underwater the thing was even more sinister, it made a low spreading wave and only the exhaust trunk was visible. It reached the near bank and the muzzle began to rise, breaching the surface and creeping up the slope. This close it was huge, as wide and tall as a railway locomotive, but completely faceless, silent apart from the clanking of its machinery and the sizzling of the steam plant. Hjutens had a small opportunity to place a well aimed burst under its belly as it climbed out but without apparent effect. Forty yards, thirty yards, the thing was going to simply crush them.

"Alright, pull out, pull back, move! Move!"

The five men withdrew from the dugout and scuttled back across the open ground to the next line of trenches. The steam landship lifted a hatch in its nose and a machine gun protruded, a short burst of fire and the brown coated figures fell and twitched and lay still. In the towns the machine gun company had passed through, the little Hjutenses would remain for ever fatherless.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

_18 – 19 March 2007 _

_For author notes about Chapter Twenty Three, please see my forum (click on my pen name)_


	25. Chapter 24 : Healing

**Chapter Twenty Four – Healing**

The farm was in a narrow valley, steep sided. There was woodland and a stream running in a now-russet ribbon alongside. A high wall surrounded it and at the gate Pazu stopped and listened. Cows mooed in a shed and hens clucked but there was no sign of people. It was a small place, much smaller than Tanner and Morwen's, a little house, timber built, a cow shed and a hut in which a cart stood. They went across the yard and called their hellos at the door. No answer. They went in. A simple room lay beyond the door, a floor of red tiles, whitewashed walls, a stone fireplace and basic furniture. A cupboard had fallen off one wall and the crockery contents were broken. A chair lay on its side.

"Hello? Anyone home?"

Silence.

"Pazu, those cows need milking. I can tell. They're mooing in pain."  
"Where's the farmer then? Hello?"

They went into the next room, a kitchen. The place was a mess, everything overturned and broken, the hearth cold. Pazu put his hand to the ashes and knew no fire had been lit there for two or three days. There was a door to the rear of the house. He stuck his head out, a small vegetable garden. Another small door in the kitchen concealed a steep narrow stair.

Cautiously he went up.

At the top the structure of the building was even simpler, the stair opened into just one large room, open to the roof beams, a double bed, a smaller bed and a cot. The scene of desolation was repeated, things broken, things overturned. There were small windows on two sides and Pazu looked out of both. One faced the walled yard, the other the garden. There was nothing unusual outside. The farmer and his family had vanished. He opened the window over the garden.

"Hello? Anyone?"

A bird sang, the cows mooed. He went back down.

"I've got to milk those cows, they're suffering."  
"I'll come with you."

They went across to the shed and inside were three brown cows, obviously in discomfort, their udders huge. Sheeta got a pail and a stool down from a hook on the wall and set to work. Pazu went outside and around the shed. Built onto the back of it was a hen coop, he looked in. Taking off his cap he picked out seven eggs. Back inside the cow shed he put the cap down carefully and went around the yard. The place had either seen unwelcome visitors or something had caused the farmer and his family to leave in a hurry. A great hurry, too fast to even let their cows out, to put possessions on their cart.

--I--  
---o-o-oOo-o-o---  
I I

Night had fallen. They had cleaned up the house, sweeping out all that was broken and putting back all that wasn't. Pazu found a wood store behind the house, he lit fires in the downstairs rooms and placed lit candles in each, filling the place with warmth and cheer. In the bedroom he opened a wardrobe, simple clothes, not many. A man, a woman, maybe two boys and a small child, a girl. He picked up a tiny dress and wondered what had happened here. He made up the big bed and put everything of a personal nature that reminded him of the farmer's family out of sight, even stripping the smaller bed down to its frame, standing it on its end and moving the wardrobe in front of it. He put the baby's cot inside the wardrobe. As he finished he smelled cooking.

"Omelette?"

She asked as he descended the stair. He realised he was starving. She brought an iron skillet over from the fire and spooned out a huge thick omelette, stuffed with vegetables. With a fish slice she cut it in two and scooped one half onto a second plate. Ravenous he tucked in. She dropped the skillet by the sink and joined him, she was very hungry too.

"Vegetables out in the garden. Potatoes, carrots, onions, peas, beans. Nothing in the house though, except for some cooking ingredients – flour, salt, sugar, butter. It seems to have been cleaned out."  
"Just going outside. I want to look around."  
"Bring a pail of water in with you."

Pazu made another circuit of the property. He gave the hens some seed and the cattle fresh straw. They would need taking out into a field in the morning. He checked the boundary wall and gate, barring the latter with its long bolt-beam. He checked the farm's layout. From the lane the only way in was through this gate. Around the back though, through the trees the garden and back door were accessible. He looked quickly in the cart shed but it was too dark in there to see much. Looking back at the house he saw a few chinks of light showing at the edges of shutters and decided to stuff those with cloths. Nothing to be done about the smoke from the chimney. He wasn't concerned about the family returning, he felt that wasn't going to happen. He just didn't want them to advertise their presence more than they had to. He drew water from the well and went back inside, bolting both doors. More secure, he felt better.

Sheeta washed up and then they both realised they were disgustingly filthy. There was a big tin bath hanging on a hook in the kitchen. Sheeta carried it into the main room and stood it in front of the fire. There was a copper kettle and a hook to hang it over the fire. Pazu brought in more firewood and built the fire up, then he went back out and brought in more water. It took a while to heat enough but eventually a steaming bath was ready. Sheeta had found towels on a shelf in the kitchen. Even, and best of all, a cake of soap.

"Ladies first. I'll wait next door."

He sat in the kitchen. He tried to keep himself busy but he could hear her. The thud of her boots as she dropped them on the floor. He closed his eyes and imagined her wiggling out of the tight riding britches. Silence for a few moments, then a gentle splash and a sigh. More splashing. His mind went back to the stream. White skin and sparkling water. Her voice interrupted his dream.

"Oh, Pazu, this is _so_ good. I've not sat in hot water since Morwen's. Mmm…"

He sat quietly. Every little splash and drip came to him. His mind saw where the water splashed, the places from where it dripped. Sweet torture. He got the revolver from the bag, threw the three empty shell cases into the fire then sat cleaning it, wiping the plump barrel with the oily rag. He counted the bullets, digging them out of the dark damp corners of the knapsack, wiping them and putting them in one of the four smaller pockets. In there was the bag of sweets. Only a few left now. She had eaten all the _reustaub_ ones. Again he saw the strawberry sweet, pink and shiny and dripping the delicate moisture from her mouth.

_damn, stop it_ _  
_

He got up, added wood to the fire and put a pan of water on for tea. Anything to keep his mind off what was next door.

"Pazu?"  
"Yes."  
"Would you come here please."  
"What is it?"  
"Would you. I mean do you mind washing my hair?"

Pazu froze, tea packet in hand. An image of her bathing came to him. White skin, arms raised, washing under them. Splash. Drip.

"Uh…"  
"It's alright. I won't bite."  
"How can I wash you without looking?"  
"I'm under water, you silly boy."  
"I'm not silly."  
"_Tsuru_(1). Anyway, you're not afraid are you?"  
"Me scared? 'Course not."  
"I didn't say scared, I said _afraid_. It's different."  
"No, not scared or afraid, not me."  
"You can come in then can't you?"

_eh? how did that happen?  
_

"Alright."

He opened the door and looked in. The room was lit by the blazing fire and by the candles he'd placed on windowsill and mantel. Sheeta was sat sideways to the fire, her back to him. Again, the first thing he noticed was how white her skin was.

"You could wash your own hair."  
"I could, but I thought you would like to. You said how much you liked it."

_trapped me again_

"What do you want me to do?"  
"Come here, get the kettle of water and wet my hair."

As he went around her to the fireplace he glanced at her and was relieved to see that the bathwater covered her front. She had already washed and the water was opaque, soapy. He knelt kettle in hand.

"Oh, you're still filthy. Look at you!"

He looked. His hands and arms were black with several days grime and sweat.

"I'll go wash them."  
"Wash here. You'll be getting in here soon anyway."  
"Um."  
"What now?"  
"Uhr…"  
"Just take your shirt off."  
"Are you sure?"  
"You were fine showing me a lot more the other afternoon!"  
"I didn't care then, I couldn't have cared less. Now is different."  
"Why?"  
"Because. You've got no clothes on."  
"Oh, Pazu," she rolled her eyes, "just because a person might have no clothes on doesn't mean it's wrong, or dirty, or… or babies might get made."  
"You're making fun of me."  
"No I'm not. You act like being undressed is wrong. It isn't. It's what people think or do that's wrong. Our bodies come from Lucita the mother spirit. She makes beautiful bodies. Like yours. She doesn't do it wrong, Pazu, she's had lots of practice. The only reason you think it's wrong to see someone without clothes is because your village and family brought you up to think like that."  
"So my mom and dad were wrong. Is that it?"  
"Yes. In this case, yes. I'm sorry, but they were. Look how embarrassed you get when I take my clothes off. If I stood up now I expect you'd run out the room. That would be their doing."  
"You make them sound wicked."  
"No, not wicked, just misguided. Almost everyone is. And that is very sad. Shame doesn't come from Lucita, Pazu, it comes from men. Shall I stand up?"  
"No."  
"See? That's shame. Look how it hurts you. I'm not ashamed of me Pazu and you shouldn't be either."  
"I'm worried."  
"About what?"  
"How I might react."  
"That's different. In what way?"  
"You know I said I wasn't scared Sheeta? Well, I am. I'm scared of what I might do. I…"  
"You'd like to touch me?"

_how I felt. at the stream. wanting to do something wrong to her, something almost violent _

and Tanner had said...

he'd said that was his body wanting to make babies

"Sheeta, you seem to know so much more about this than me. I'm scared that we might make a baby, I… uh. I don't know how to. And I'm afraid we might. By accident."

She looked at him and thought how lovely he was. His innocence was so beautiful. She could hug him right now, filthy arms and all.

"I told you in the barn. Lots of things need to happen to make a baby. It doesn't happen by accident, Pazu, by just touching. And I don't want to. Not now, not for a long time. I think we are quite grown up, I think we can choose not to, even though we may feel like we want to, we are sensible enough to resist. That's the difference between seeing someone unclothed and liking them and wanting to do things and being unable to resist – and seeing them unclothed and just thinking how beautiful they are. Appreciating the beautiful work of Lucita. Do you understand?"  
"I think so. I still have these strong feelings though."  
"You're intelligent. You're strong. You can resist those feelings. If you care a lot about another person you can resist. It's easy. It's called respect for that person. You care about me?"  
"Of course!"  
"I know. Because of the other evening in the barn. I like you a lot too. I think we respect each other. Yes?"  
"Yes. I think so."  
"Good."

And she stood up, smoothly, quickly. No warning. She stood, hands at her sides, dripping.

Pazu was so shocked he didn't know what to do. He froze in place.

"Sheeta…I."  
"Look at me Pazu. I want you to."  
"Uh…"  
"I'm not ashamed. I'm not embarrassed. And _I_ have nothing on. So you shouldn't be either."

Water dripped from her whiteness. She glistened, she shone in the firelight. The only thing she wore was her blue stone on its leather strand. A drop of water hung from the stone, a star in the firelight. The droplet grew and dripped and ran down. Pazu watched it trickle down her skin. The warm light flickered and lit up one side of her, glowing and golden. Her other side was in shadow, shadows pooled below where she curved, under and between. He stood up.

"Sheeta…"  
"What, Pazu? What is it?"  
"Uh. You… You're."  
"Remember what I said. Don't feel shame. Don't be embarrassed. Lucita made me. She's very good at what she does. She made me with love. I love her, I'm proud to come from the seed and egg she blessed with her kiss. I've seen you Pazu, you are beautiful too. I can see that Lucita was happy the day she made you."  
"Sheeta…"  
"If you say anything please just use honest words."

He stared at her. She was...

"You're… You're the most beautiful thing. I've ever seen."

She smiled at him. She stood only a moment, while he looked. All he could do was look, at how she moved as she breathed, as she rose and fell, as her shape moved, lungs filling and emptying. He noticed how her arms rested differently to his own. His hung with elbows outwards, but she… her arms lay with the elbows turned inward, their slight bend mirroring the curve where her waist narrowed. Her stomach, the gentle dome of it, the small oval dent there in the centre, just like he had. And below. Below that. He swallowed again, his throat was dry. She bent her knees, turned sideways to him, reached her hands for the edge of the bath and gracefully, smoothly sat back down, the vision slid away, covered again by opaque water.

"Now you can take off your shirt and not be embarrassed."

She sat watching him while he stood remembering her.

"That water is getting cold."  
"Uh, yes."

He set down the kettle, discarded his waistcoat and crossing his arms in front of him gripped his shirt and pulled it over his head. As he lifted the shirt an odd feeling came over him, it was one of the most peculiar sensations he'd ever felt. Despite her words and how she'd so sweetly encouraged him he still thought he would be embarrassed. But he wasn't, and not only that but he felt... How did he feel? Eager. Willing. He _wanted_ her to see him, that was how he felt. He simply wanted to take his clothes off in front of her. He'd felt nothing like this before. As he lifted the shirt he wanted to be undressed with her, it felt. Good. He took the shirt off over his head and dropped it.

She sat, knees drawn up, her chin resting on them.

_he's lovely, my how beautiful he is_

"Good," she managed to keep her voice level, unassuming, "I've made you some room, you can wash there."

_don't let your voice betray how you're feeling. oh, he's. he's gorgeous  
_  
Sheeta coughed.

"Alright?"  
"Yes, fine, just some omelette going down."

He wet his arms then soaped and scrubbed. Rinsed. He soaped again, lifting them in turn and washing under them. She watched him. Watched the shape of him. His muscles. Sheeta felt something in her mid section stirring.

_no. not yet. too soon, sheeta, put that aside._

"Ready?"  
"Hm."

He knelt behind her and poured the clean warm water over her, running the fingers of his free hand through the heavy mass of hair. Even with the damage Muska had done to it, there was still lots of it. He couldn't imagine how long a mane it would be if she still had her pigtails and unbound them.

"Get it really wet. When you're done put more water on to heat."  
"There's some left in the kettle."  
"Not enough, it will need a good rinse. Fill it again."

He stood, went to the pail, tipped more water in the kettle and hung it over the fire. He turned back to her and saw her watching him. She had a funny look in her eyes, they were part closed, hooded, as though she were tired.

"Are you alright?"  
"Yes. I am. Very alright."

_I want. I want to touch him. this is madness, he said he'd felt like this and now I do, now I know what he feels  
_  
She put her teeth to her knee and bit herself, making it hurt to drive away her thoughts. She had known boys in Gondoa, had played with them, grown up with them. She had always been around them, and several of them had paid attention to her. They treated it as a joke, some of them, Sheeta the Princess. But some of them seemed to be more than friendly. Etume especially. It had been Etume who had first kissed her, two years ago, when she had first felt those tinglings of something, a slight ache that came only when he wasn't around and which went away when he was near. By the lakeshore they had sat, that afternoon before he left for his journey, his _pead-lth-u'or_(2), the journey all boys take, their year away, leaving as boys, returning as men. That last afternoon, the very last time she would see him. He had given her the keepsake of the music box, a parting gift. She had looked at him and felt then this feeling that Pazu described when he looked at her. She knew what this boy before her was feeling. That strong need to reach out. And touch, touch places where you shouldn't. A hot feeling where you felt clothes were in the way. And Etume had stood and held her, and kissed her and she'd not wanted him to go. But he had gone, smiling and turning at the top of the hill and waving his last wave.

He never came back. She had waited that year, then two years, her heart weighing heavier and more sorrowful with each dead week. And he never came back. Then Muska had come, and now she was here. And what she had felt for Etume she now felt for this boy, this funny, clumsy, beautiful, shy, brave, clueless, gorgeous boy who had come into her life, taking away the old one and giving her another. Taking away Etume and giving her himself. He had been so strong for her, done so much, risked so much, made her laugh. Made her care. Given up his whole life for her.

I think. I think… _Paetsu yau ulve om_(3)

He was soaping her hair, scooping up masses of it and piling it on her head, rubbing down to the scalp with his strong fingers. She sniffed and wiped at her eyes, putting memories away.

"Alright?"  
"Hm, just soap in my eye."

She began to relax, feeling his hands on her made her feel. How did it make her feel? Protected. And wanted. He wanted to do this and that made her feel that she had worth. Someone else in this world saw that she had worth. Wanted to be with her and near her for the simple pleasure of it. She wiped again. Stop it.

Pazu massaged her scalp, gently, slowly. He didn't want to hurt her or break anything. Move carefully, delicately, like when he was working on the small mechanisms of his flying machine in the basement. She made a small breathy sound.

"Are you alright?"  
"I am, just relaxing. I feel tired."  
"Oh."

Pazu scooped up the hair one final time.

"Wait. I'll get the clean water."

This time she didn't watch him, she stared at her knees. Enough emotion for one day.

"Close your eyes."

The warm water cascaded over her, he ran his fingers through, pushing out the soap and rinsed again, then a third time. A towel came over her and he rubbed vigorously.

"Here, let me."

She took the towel and wound it around her head, tucked in the end to make a turban.

"I'll dry it when I get out."

She looked up at him. He was staring at her.

"What is it?"  
"Your back."  
"Hm?"  
"It's healed. Completely."

He knelt and ran his fingers low down across her shoulder.

"Can I look? Sit up."

She did so.

"No, more, can you kneel up?"

Again, she did so, her front came out of the water and droplets ran down her there and dripped, but Pazu didn't even notice. She felt his fingers on her, below her right shoulder blade and moving across her spine to her left side, low down. She could feel it was the same line where she had been hurt but now it was better. She knew it was.

"How did this happen? That bruise? It should last two or three weeks. And the skin, there's no scabs, no roughness at all. It's perfect. Sheeta?"  
"The stone Pazu. I used the stone."  
"A spell?"  
"The spell of healing(4). I felt guilty using it on myself. It should be used to help others, it's wrong to use it on yourself."  
"And the ankle as well?"  
"Yes, the ankle too. I did it because of the ankle. I wanted to be of more use to Morwen. And to you. When you went into town with Tanner that first time. I wanted to go. So the night before I used it."  
"That was the night I put flowers in your room. I saw the stone. It was doing something odd. Like it was alive. There was smoke inside it. Moving."  
"Hm, it does. When its powers are used it becomes alive. It takes a day sometimes for it to grow calm again. It depends on the spell. It took three days for it to be still after we used the spell of destruction. While it is living it cannot be used again until it is still."  
"I thought it was the moonlight."  
"In the moonlight it is more powerful, when there is a conjunction of moons, of Ptamos and Tahro, it's more powerful still."  
"Is that a good spell?"  
"Hm, but it is meant to be used to heal others. There are bad spells as well, I told you before."

He sat back on his heels and looked at her skin.

"You need to bathe Pazu. I'll get out."  
"I'll fetch more water."

While Pazu washed, Sheeta went upstairs and investigated the contents of the wardrobe. She put on the night shirt Morwen had given her, and for him he found a man's shirt. Tomorrow she would wash their clothes. She had seen something useful hanging up in the kitchen, a copper bed warming pan. She filled this with hot ashes from the fire and put it in the bed. She also lit a candle. She stood at the window looking at the moonlit farmyard and wondered where the farmer and his wife and children were. She bowed her head and asked _Utomu_(5) to watch over the family and protect them. She also said sorry for using their house, their bed, their food. She hated stealing but she was grateful that _Utomu_ had led them to this place so they could rest, and so they could talk. She felt this was meant to happen. _Utomu_ had provided this place of refuge for them. So they could be refreshed and so they could grow. Perhaps _Utomu_ and _Lucita_ had met and spoken about them, had arranged that they come here. So that she and Pazu might grow together into something more than what they were now. So that Sheeta might teach. Sheeta felt a special affinity for _Lucita_, but _Lucita_ was always close to _Maerth-dhu_ and he was a spirit you didn't want close. Whenever he was near, so was death. She considered this, _Lucita_ and _Utomu_ had met here, perhaps a few days ago, and agreed to guide Pazu and her here. If that were so, death had been here also.

--I--  
---o-o-oOo-o-o---  
I I

She had gone downstairs and taken the shirt in to him and then gone up to bed, lying quietly in the moonlit room, waiting, her heart fast and loud. She heard him coming up the stair and saw the outline of his shape in the blue darkness. She lay quiet and still as he sat on the bed. He lifted the blankets and slid in, lying near her but not touching. She felt his nearness, she wanted to be close to him, be with him but right now – nothing more. She worried that perhaps downstairs she had given him the wrong message. For long minutes in the dark they lay, not moving.

"Sheeta."  
"Yes."  
"I'm cold."  
"It's warm by my feet. The warming pan was there."

Next to her the bed moved with his shifting weight. His feet were suddenly touching hers in the puddle of warmth the hot copper had made. She let him touch against her there.

"Hm, lovely and warm."  
"Urh, you're cold though. Toes like ice."  
"Sheeta."  
"Yes."  
"I'm still cold."

There was a pause.

"I'm warm, Pazu."  
"Can I?"  
"Yes."

Again the bed moved. His legs touched her, his knees, his stomach. She turned on her side towards him and his arm came around her, his chest was there and she pressed into it, her face into the hollow of his neck. She put her arm on him, around him. She squeezed, pressed herself to him.

"I'm tired Pazu, let's sleep."  
"Yes. Go to sleep."

Darkness, warmth, comfort, his hand on her back, his legs against hers, his smell. She so needed this. Sheeta closed her eyes to stop the tears from coming.

"Sheeta, thank you."  
"I haven't done anything."  
"Thank you for taking me."  
"Where?"  
"On this journey."  
"Where? Home? You're taking me."  
"No, this journey. With you. Everything you are teaching me. Thank you."  
"Still a long way to go."  
"Is there?"  
"Hm. Let's go together."

He held her tighter, kissed her hair. In the room - blue darkness of the moon. In her heart - sunshine; bright, rising, a new day.

"Pazu, kiss me good night."

She tilted her head up and he touched her lightly, briefly.

"Good night Sheeta."  
"'Night."  
"Pazu?"  
"Yes?"

_yau ulve om_(3)

"Nothing. 'Night."

He hugged her tight. She was so tired that within five minutes her heart slowed and she breathed the slow breaths of those who know nothing but rest.

--I--  
---o-o-oOo-o-o---  
I I

_Maerth-dhu_ was near the farmhouse, in the darkness on the moist earthy hillside above the shed. He and _Lucita_ had come to their agreement and he was satisfied. His work here was done, rising into the night sky, his home, he departed.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

_14 - 20 March 2007 _

_(1) Tsuru sorry.  
(2) Pead-lth-u'or The Search for Man. From "peadlth" to run, to hunt and "–u" the sound of a perfectly still wind, or silence. Making "pead-lth-u" to hunt quietly, to stalk, to seek or search. And finally "or" man. The search to become a man. A journey all boys must make when they reach puberty. They travel away for a year, alone and when they return they are considered men. Once men they can take a wife, carry weapons, set up a home and partake of the community pipe at feasts, the "Telle".  
(3) For the moment, for the purposes of the plot, I can't translate this for you.  
(4) In the movie, when Sheeta and Pazu are talking in the glider cockpit and Dola is listening in her room, Sheeta mentions to Pazu that she knows "lots of spells", she specifically mentions "spells for finding things, spells for healing."  
(5) There are a great number of spirits and gods the Laputans honour. Utomu is the spirit who rides alongside travelers and who guides and protects them and brings them safely to their destination. If a traveler becomes lost or delayed or injured on his way it is because he did not place his faith in Utomu when he set out and did not thank him for a safe day's journey each evening. Sheeta, who has an affinity to Lucita, the Earth Mother, the spirit of life, knows that Utomu is not just a guide of earthly travelers, who journey from place to place. He guides spiritual travelers also, those who journey inside themselves. Those who desire to learn. _

For author notes about Chapter Twenty Four, please see my forum (click on my pen name)


	26. Chapter 25 : Pyre

**Chapter Twenty Five - Pyre  
**  
The man in the green suit was not unduly worried. He relaxed back in the armchair by the fire and listened to the trivial chatter of the travelers off the road. News of war, panicky, garbled, exaggerated, rumours of almost no use. Surun sipped his drink, smoked his cigarette and waited. News would come and war was war. Yes, civilians died, but he had a feeling about these two children. Something about them would see them through this.

They had been captured by Muska and secured in Tepis Fortress. Muska had apparently let the boy go which, in hindsight, Surun could see from the report, had been a big mistake. Muska had underestimated this boy, to his cost. Surun wouldn't. The boy was irrelevant, dangerous but irrelevant. The girl was the key. The girl who had spoken to the mechanical man and who carried this stone. Information about the stone was garbled. Several soldiers at Tepis had described it issuing a beam of light into the eastern sky and one survivor of Goliath, one of the bridge officers, had clearly seen Colonel Muska using it placed alongside the ships compass to guide Goliath. Surun knew the story of a pirate ship being involved was true, he also knew Goliath hadn't been in pursuit of it, but following something else. This unknown giant airship, this floating island. This Laputa.

Everybody knew the stories of Laputa, they were fables, mothers told them to their children in their beds. Myths, fairy tales. But incredibly, it seemed Laputa was real. Muska had found it, and it had destroyed both Goliath and him. And this girl was the key to understanding Laputa and its power.

Yes, the girl was key. The boy merely an annoyance. He just needed to be got rid of.

Surun sat in the inn watching the weary muddy travelers come and go. Otto and Ryddyck were with him working up here in the north east, always checking information, following leads. He had called up two further teams, four more agents. He'd sent two to the Restormellian border. He knew the girl and boy were heading north and it seemed more and more likely they were going to her farm in the far north. That was stupid of them, very stupid. They would be easy to find and bring back. Surun had sent his other team deep into Restormel to investigate possible reasons why they might be heading there and not to Gondoa.

But as to the war, there was nothing to be done. But if Numenaorian troops had news of them, Surun would hear of it. Major General Beauhen was a fat arrogant fool. He was unaware of the Agency's influence even among his own officers. Many of the younger commanders knew the direction things were going.

--I--  
---o-o-oOo-o-o---  
I I

It had become almost idyllic, almost a home, they had become nearly a couple, living as farmers. Tending the cows, letting the chickens out in the yard, cutting firewood, doing the washing. They had stayed two days and three nights. Two days in which they had got to know each other more than ever before. They had come to know each other not by talking but by living side by side, by cooking, working, cleaning and merely resting in each others presence. There was of course the watching too. Sheeta found it was one of her favourite pastimes. She had been in the garden sat on a tree stump shelling peas and he had been nearby chopping firewood. He was naked to the waist and she had found herself not just watching him but _drowning_. She held the bowl of peas on her lap and then, after ten minutes had not even noticed that she had put it down and just her hands were in her lap, pressing against herself. _There_. In shock and guilt she'd gone inside, splashed water on her face and neck and finished the peas away from that _vision_.

It had become almost a marriage.

But the war was always there, always reminding them. The noise of gunfire had awoken them the first morning. It was much closer than when they'd heard it before, they had lain in the pre-dawn half light, holding each other and listening to the sound. The guns were close now, it was no longer like distant thunder, they could hear individual explosions. Not more than ten or fifteen miles away, Sheeta thought.

The gunfire never really stopped, it might be quieter at times but at others very loud. Airships passed over several times and on the second morning a column of cavalrymen went riding down the lane. More and more they felt the war drawing nearer. Traveling further north was going to be not just difficult but dangerous.

On the third morning Pazu knew they had to move on, not because of the war coming but because he found he could no longer stay in this house, in this family's bed. It filled him with loathing to be near the place. At the end of the garden was a path through a scrubby field up the valley. He'd followed it, out of idle curiosity, and the path had led to a small wooden footbridge across the stream under the trees. The children had made a swing here, just a length of wood on the end of a rope. They must have enjoyed summer afternoons swinging above the stream and falling into the pool below. Beyond the bridge and the trees was a working space, another shed, the signs of a plough being used here.

He climbed a slope and above the valley floor on a low plateau were the farmers fields. He saw something at once. The plough. It stood in the centre of the field, the ploughing partly finished and now weeds coming up through the stubble of the area the plough had not reached. There was something on the ground beside it and Pazu went over. He didn't need to get very close to know what it was, he could smell it from a distance. A horse, dead and swollen and burst open, its stomach had been worried by dogs. Someone had killed the farmers horse while he was ploughing. So where was the farmer?

He went around the dead horse at a distance. On the ground in the furrows something glittered. He bent and picked it up. A brass bullet case. He sniffed it, it smelled exactly like the ones he'd thrown in the fire three nights ago. This one was bigger, longer, a rifle bullet had been fired here. As far as he knew the only people who went around with rifles were soldiers. Tanner had a shotgun, farmers tended to have shotguns to shoot rabbits and foxes. Tanner had a revolver as well, and the men in suits had pistols, but rifles were used by soldiers.

Across the field a little way he noticed something strange about the ploughed ground. There was a long deep gash cutting across the angle of the furrows. The trench was big, a foot wide and a foot deep and thirty or forty feet long. A little way from it, twenty feet away and parallel, was another exactly the same. Pazu tried to visualize what had made these marks. He had a thought and went along both deep furrows. Half way along one of them, on the 'outside' of the pair of marks he found what he was looking for. Footprints, boot prints, many of them. A group of men had appeared in the middle of the field, all in one spot and from here he could see the marks going towards the plough, spreading out.

His mind could visualize what had happened. The farmer had been ploughing and an airship had come down and landed in his field, men had got out, a lot of men. Men with rifles who had shot the farmers horse. And then what? A bleak vision came into the boy's head. The farmer was up here, surrounded by soldiers. That meant his wife and the three children were in the farm. Someone had gone into the farm and smashed the place up. As far as he could see no clothes had been taken, no cows, no cart. Only food.

Pazu began to sweat and feel very uncomfortable. He went to the plough again, covering his mouth against the stench. He found what he was most afraid to see. By the plough handle, where the man guiding it would stand, was a dark stain on the earth. He knelt down in the soft soil and put his hand to the dark patch, digging in his fingers he picked up a handful and sniffed.

He knew this smell well, he had seen enough accidents in the mines. It was blood.

Oh, no. No.

The farmer had been shot up here, leaving his family in the house. Defenceless. A woman and three children.

Instinctively he looked around at the land and the trees, as though the evil was still here, hiding in the soil. He got up and went back down to the bridge. As he passed the shed by the trees a sixth sense made him pause. This must be where the farmer kept his horse. The door had its exterior bolt thrown over. Someone had closed it from the outside. He worried at the stiff bolt and the door swung open.

The smell hit him first. Even though it was cold weather, they had lain here a week. Pazu and Sheeta had been here three days and he knew when they arrived that there had been no fire in the kitchen for another three. Pazu looked and his life changed. What he saw in that shed stayed with him until the day he died. Groaning with a terrible aching feeling of sheer sadness and frustration he sank down on his knees. They lay in an untidy pile near the rear wall, the two parents on the outside of the heap, the children in the middle as though gathered between their mom and dad for protection. And worst, oh no, worst of all in her arms the mother held a little bundle with a shock of blond curls. Pazu let his head down and pressed his forehead to the dirt. He let out a howl of distress and anger. Someone, some _bastards_, had done this. Came here, murdered an innocent happy family, stolen food and left. Soldiers probably and from which side he didn't know nor care.

He knelt there for a while. He didn't believe in any gods, he only used that name when he was struggling to express himself. He knew Sheeta believed in spirits but she'd never called them gods. But now, of all the reactions he could have had to this discovery, Pazu surprised himself by praying. He prayed for peace for the souls of the five people in the shed and then he prayed that those who had done this would be judged accordingly, treated accordingly, as they deserved.

He couldn't leave the bodies here, it was too cruel to leave them where dogs might get in. These innocent people deserved better. But he just couldn't bring himself to touch them, to carry them out to a grave. But he could burn them, a funeral pyre was all he could think of. It was all he could do for them. Weeping with frustration and anger, boiling with hate, he rose to his feet and left the shed.

"Sheeta!"  
"Yes, in here."

She was in the kitchen, of all things baking. He stood in the doorway and looked at her. Her hair was bound up in a white scarf, her sleeves rolled up and her arms white to the elbow with flour. Such a scene of domestic calm, so ordinary, so innocent. He looked at her face, she seemed a little perturbed by his tone of voice. He wanted so much to go to her and hold her.

"What is it?"  
"We need to leave. At once."  
"I've just put a pie in to cook."  
"How long will it take?"  
"An hour."  
"We leave in an hour. Take it with you. Pack anything you want to take. Food, clothes, candles. Whatever you think we can carry."  
"Why? What is it?"  
"Do you trust me?"  
"Of course I do."  
"Then please trust me. We must go. Now. This morning, but I can't tell you why. I just don't want you to know. So please trust me, trust this decision."

A look of worry came over her.

"What?"  
"I can't tell you what, or why. We just need to go. But we're not in danger, so there isn't anything to worry about, I just want to be away from here."  
"The cows."  
"Leave them in the field, it's better they stay out there than in the shed. There's nothing else we can do for them. I'll leave the chickens out."  
"Pazu."  
"Hm?"  
"I trust you. One hour."  
"Thank you. Oh, and sorry, I need to be busy. Don't pay any attention to what I'm doing. And Sheeta."  
"Yes."  
"That isn't a request. I don't want you to see what I'm doing."  
"I don't understand. But I do trust you."  
"Good girl. One hour."

He got the chemical fire blocks from his knapsack. There were about twenty left and he put half of them in his pockets. As he went to leave the room he turned back and got the revolver and loaded it. Checking the lock was on he stuffed it in the back of his belt. He just felt better having it with him. From that moment on, for a long time, he always carried it loaded. Things had changed.

He got the wheelbarrow and loaded it with firewood. Up at the shed he put all but one of the fire blocks on the bodies and then covered them with wood. He made several trips to the woodpile until it was all used up, all piled in the shed. He stood in front of the crude pile. Thinking of that little bundle with the blonde curls, and the tiny dress he had seen in the wardrobe, he asked whoever might be listening to forgive him. He put the last chemical block at the front of the pile and then smashed it with a piece of timber. The chemicals mixed and burned and soon the flames spread through the dry timber to the other chemical blocks. These spat and burst and blazed in turn. Pazu backed out of the shed, he walked to the centre of the small yard by the trees and sat down. He tucked his knees up to his chin and hugged them, watching the shed burn. It soon became a furnace, roaring swirling flames reaching to the height of the trees, a column of black smoke drifting thickly up the valley.

Pazu thought he should say something, some appropriate words, but he wasn't an educated person and nothing would come. Nothing but an aching desire that those in the shed be at peace. And then something did occur to him.

"Lucita. Uh, you don't know me. And I don't know you. Tanner says you are a good spirit, a spirit who brings life. He says that when things die, people die, you take them, and take the good parts and use them again in a new creation. I don't know the people here, but it seems to me that this little girl couldn't have had any bad in her at all. So, please, if you would, please take her and use all of her in another child. She didn't have a proper life here, so… please let her have a life again. Uh, that's all. Thank you."

He wiped his eyes and got up. Hating war, hating soldiers, a burning red fury in his heart, he went back to the house.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

_20 - 21 March 2007 _

_For author notes about Chapter Twenty Five, please see my forum (click on my pen name)_


	27. Chapter 26 : Following

**Chapter Twenty Six – Following**

Pazu watched her and as he did so he thought about things. He looked particularly at her legs, her hips and how she moved. He wasn't thinking improper thoughts as he watched her from behind, although he would have been quite entitled too. It was, after all, a very pleasant view. But no, as they negotiated this steep hillside and came out of the treeline onto the sunlit uplands of gorse and curlew, Pazu had been thinking not of the shape of the girl he was following but the why of her movements. Why did she move like this? They had been walking an hour since dawn and it had grown light. A little longer and they would have to stop, find a large gorse bush and crawl under, seek shelter, have breakfast and rest. They had worked their way off the lower lying fields yesterday, the day after leaving the farm, and struck out across the ribs of a series of ridges that ran north to south down the land. Their route towards the east took them across these ribs. On the upper slopes of each the soil was thin and limestone outcrops speckled the spines of the land. The trees didn't grow up here, the soil was too thin, only gorse, bracken and sometimes pewlet grass. Pewlet grass was good, Sheeta would pick handfuls of it, boil it in water and it would break down into a glutinous mass that reminded him of Judd's pea soup from the canteen in the Ravine. A little sour and earthy tasting but full of something, some goodness that kept them going.

They would stop soon. Get to the crest of this ridge and see over, see what the next bound would require of them. The path was narrow, just a sheep track, and they could not walk side by side. She had worked her way ahead, forty feet or so. The hillside was steep and they walked bent a little forward, leaning into the slope. Her bottom stuck out a little and yes, while he had noticed _that_, it was something else he watched now. The way she planted her feet and her hips rolled that he noticed. He'd seen this before quite recently and he'd been racking his brains trying to remember when. That gait, gentle, slow and sure, never hurrying. The placement of the feet.

It came to him, in a flash it came. Tanner. Tanner walked like that, as they walked the rows of potato plants or down the plough ruts of the barley fields, Tanner's hips and back had rolled in that same easy way, a walk that saved energy because you needed to keep up a pace like that all day, working out in the fields. A walk that placed one foot in front of the other so you only stepped down one plough rut, not two. Pazu stopped and stood, eyes wide.

A farmer. Sheeta walked like a farmer. And the sweet revelation that crashed over Pazu caused him to stop in sheer surprise and wonder. She didn't walk like a princess, no. Not a princess. However it was that princesses walked, they didn't walk with both feet placed easily into one plough rut with a gait designed to allow them to walk, while working, for hours. And if Sheeta walked like a farmer, then… well it was obvious wasn't it? Why hadn't he seen this huge obvious thing before? _Taeg-dhu, Paetsu_, she walked like a farmer because she was one. _Taeg-dhu, taeg-dhu, TAEG-DHU!_

She was a few tens of yards ahead now and he called to her. She stopped, turned and looked back down the slope. She lifted a sleeve to her forehead and wiped there, smiling back down at him. She tossed her head, bent forward at the waist and threw her mane of hair forwards, running her hands up through it, getting cool air, the cool breeze on her neck. She stood upright again and flipped it back, such a feminine motion. She adjusted her hair band. In profile she looked less like a farmer, no big farmers bosom, no wide spreading derriere, no ruddy, sun worn cheeks. No, from the side – or the front – not a farmer. Definitely not. Just from behind was she a farmer, and then only when she walked. From the side, or the front she was something else. An angel. A spirit who had come down from heaven to save him. The earth mother whose touch would raise him in rebirth. Just Lucita. That was all. And he followed her. He knew now. The wonderful hot wave of revelation flowed and swirled around him, submerging him so that he gasped for air.

"Come on slow coach! I want breakfast!"

She turned again and went on, he could see her face scanning the ground before her, she had noted the pewlet grass too. Pewlet slime for breakfast. Mmm…

She had provided him with enough clues. That very first night when she'd named the constellations. Farmers knew the night sky didn't they? And the next day, at breakfast, she'd known all about wild plants and again with Morwen's hounds. Farmers were good with animals. She could drive a wagon, lead a horse, milk a cow. She had been named after the earth mother, the spirit of growing things, as a farmers daughter might be. He stood, recalling her words in the yard at the Cross Keys Inn when they'd slept in Hamar's wagon. Why on earth hadn't that sunk in? She couldn't have spelled it out to him more clearly, the picture he'd built up of a princess in a palace with a court and all that, it wasn't true. Was it? How could it be true? Where on earth had he got that from in the first place? She lived on a farm, cared for animals, grew crops. She wasn't a princess.

Well, yes, she was, but…

_I want to marry someone special. a person I've liked quite some time. he's really_ _noble  
_

Noble, yes, but she hadn't said a _nobleman_. What had that meant? If she had a suitor at home why was she acting like this with him? Being so wonderful, teaching him, showing him things, leading him by her hand around that corner? And _kaesu_. If you showed a boy that, you didn't have a suitor at home did you? She was telling him something wasn't she? And until now he'd not been listening.

_you idiot, pazu. you great big oaf. look, dammit! look at what she's showing you!_

From that evening on, when she'd led him round that corner it had been different. They had been different. _Kaesu om-e, Paetsu, kaesu om-e_. Something inside Pazu suddenly glowed hot. It was hope. Near the top of that ridge, lost he knew not where, walking towards a war, surely into danger, even there hope filled him.

He looked at her tiny receding figure. He had thought he was leading them, taking her home. In charge. Protecting her. Defending her. But he wasn't was he? He understood now. Ever since the night he'd flown back with Dola to rescue her from Tepis, and later at Laputa, when he searched for her and found her in the throne room. And now, even now on this hilltop. He wasn't the leader. He wasn't taking her home.

She was leading him, not just here, not just on this journey. In the barn, by her hand she had led him, with her lips she had led him, shown him how to do things. When she had stood up dripping and naked and beautiful in her bath, she had been leading him then. Gently, by small steps that even slow, stupid, steam engine driver Pazu could manage. He wasn't taking her home. She was taking him. And it wasn't to her home she was leading them. It was to his. She was taking him home.

It was windy up here, the sharp breeze burned his cheek. Even so, he knew it wasn't the wind that was making his eyes water.

He turned and looked behind him over the valley they had crossed, over the distance and the fields and their footsteps in the grass. At their days together, their sharing, their experiences. All the time, she had led him. He simply hadn't seen it. His heart was hurting, it was too big inside him, it had swollen up and now filled his throat so that it ached and he couldn't breathe. It hurt so much that tears came into his eyes. He sniffed back wetness in his nose, wiped his face on his sleeve. Men don't cry unless they've earned the right to do so.

She had stopped at the crest of the hill, the breeze here was strong and her hair blew behind her, the collar of her jacket fluttered and flapped. Sheeta looked at the view. Pazu came up the slope behind her, she turned at the sound of his approach. He strode up quickly and surprised her, walked right up to her, reached for her and putting his hands on her waist he came to her and in one fast movement his arms came strongly about her and he hugged her. She reached round, in surprise and pleasure and hugged back. He squeezed hard. For a moment neither spoke.

"Pazu? What is it?"

He held her away at arms length, she saw small beads of moisture at his lower eyelids. Then he came to her, full of need, and strongly. His mouth on hers, so sudden she was shocked. He kissed her. He drew back then held her against him again.

"Thank you, Sheeta. I understand now. I know what you're doing. Let me follow you. Lead me home."

The girl in his arms let out a sigh and snuggled closer.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

_18 – 21 March 2007 _

_For author notes about Chapter Twenty Six, please see my forum (click on my pen name)_


	28. Chapter 27 : Airfield

**Chapter Twenty Seven - Airfield  
**  
Her eyesight had always been good, he knew that. Much better than his, so she saw it first. It was so tiny that Pazu couldn't even see it, he needed the brass spyglass to see it, it was so tiny.

He'd been walking up and down the ridge looking at the view, the countryside, the war. War was all around them now and they needed to eat and move somewhere less exposed, not just out of this biting wintry wind but off the high ground. Why the army didn't have an observation post up here he didn't know, it seemed a perfect place. Surely they would use the hill soon. So they needed to eat and get going.

He crawled under the big dry brown gorse bush into the den she'd found. The chemical stove was set up and a pan of water was boiling. Against the cold she had wrapped herself in the poncho, she almost lived in it these days, walking in it when it got cold or wet, she slept in it too and he would crawl in with her into the warm space her body had made and which they shared at night.

"Hey, pewlet slime for breakfast, yummy!"  
"I beg your pardon?"  
"Pewlet soup. My favourite."  
"You said slime."  
"I did not!"  
"Yes you did, I heard you."  
"Must have been the wind."  
"How dare you be so rude about my cooking?"

He checked her eyes. They were smiling. Good.

"Uh, no, soup. Pewlet soup. It's great."

He smiled back.

"In that case, as you like it so much, I'll pick more, and we can have it for dinner and breakfast tomorrow and then…"  
"Alright, alright. It's not exactly my _favourite_, but, well, you are a good cook."  
"I know."

She stirred the pan. He stared at her, that wasn't like her. She looked up at him. Her fringe was getting long and shaggy, it hung over her eyes. The smile came back.

"Compared to the useless lump sitting opposite, I am."

He folded his arms, said nothing. He depended on keeping the cook happy, so he shut up. He stuck his tongue out though.

"Is that an offer to taste it? Offering to do the cooking are we?"  
"No, no, you're in charge of cooking, don't let me interrupt, you're the best at it."  
"That's good, we're a partnership. I'm good at cooking, so I cook."  
"Uh-huh."  
"You're good at being an annoying useless lump, so you carrying on doing that."

She smiled sweetly at him and continued stirring. He cleared his throat and pretended that being an annoying useless lump was a good thing.

He packed away the cooking things and swept away signs of their presence. Sheeta bent and ducked outside, she kept the poncho on, the breeze was so cold. He'd nearly finished when she called to him.

"_Paetsu_."

She stood, pointing to the north east. He followed her finger. He stared into a clear crisp autumnal distance of brown trees, brown fields, brown barns, low hills rising in the distance. He couldn't see anything.

"Where? What?"  
"That big wood there below the hill. To the right of it, that field."

He could see the hill and the wood and some fields.

"What am I looking for?"  
"Urh, are you blind? It's red."

He pulled the spyglass from the bag. He even needed to look carefully through that for a while. Then he saw it. It was indeed red. It fluttered stiff in the breeze, a flapping red banner on the top of a pole. Below it huts, tents. And then, made silent by the distance, a tiny moving cruciform shape went across the field and reached the far side and went up into the air, climbing in a curve.

A windsock. An airfield. An aircraft.

"Oh, yes! Aircraft! Sheeta, you're amazing! I love you!"

He gave her a peck on the cheek and started off down the hill. She stood there.

_he loves me? oh. oh, I suppose he does_

Sheeta had imagined a romantic fireside setting for that line. Him staring into her eyes, his hand reaching to touch her. But no matter; now, here, on a freezing cold autumn hilltop, she burping up the taste of pewlet grass, it was fine. It would do. At least her eyes had been involved.

_he loves me? that's good  
_  
She shrugged and went down the hill.

--I--  
---o-o-oOo-o-o---  
I I

Seeing the airfield was one thing, getting to it quite another. As they came off the higher ground they saw a town to the north, burning, in the air above it specks moved and buzzed. The day was clear and cold, the sky almost cloudless and there were a lot of airships flying. On the northern horizon there was more smoke and from time to time big shell bursts. Down on the lower ground near at hand was a field filled with tents, and horse drawn ambulances came and went, a hospital.

Beyond the hospital two fields away a battery of guns was firing steadily, their muzzles would puff out a squirt of white smoke and then, seconds later the dull report would reach them. Like ants the miniature gunners scurried about feeding the hungry breeches of the big cannons. In many lanes and copses troops were waiting and to the north the sounds of battle were unmistakable. They had to avoid being seen and although the airfield was only five miles distant it took them all day to get near it. They had to crawl in ditches and walk in streams up to their knees in icy water and lay for ages under hedges while troops marched past. Pazu led them around in a big semi-circle to the north, a long right hand curve to reach the side of the hill where the wood was, on the north side of the airfield. As evening came they entered the wood and made their way to its south edge. There they sat, shivering side by side under the poncho, the blanket over their heads watching the airfield.

There was a fence here and trenches beyond but these seemed to be unoccupied. The entrance to the aerodrome was on the far side of the field and there was a cluster of wooden huts there and a long row of canvas hangars. Cars and lorries came and went, men worked. Aircraft seemed to take off from right to left across the field. Of most interest to Pazu however was a group of four canvas hangars close at hand to their right, backs to the fence. He had seen a small stout aircraft come out of one of them. It sat high up on slender undercarriage legs with wire wheels and large balloon tyres at the nose and under the wings. The fuselage was plump and egg-shaped and sat two crew side by side in a motor car-like seat. Behind the body two large contra rotating airscrews idled and behind them twin booms of the tail were joined at the rear by a tail wing and fins. The wings were broad and stubby and the thing was painted brown with darker brown markings randomly across the upper surfaces. Pazu couldn't work out what kind of machine it was, certainly heavier than air but whether scout or bomber or unarmed reconnaissance craft was a mystery to him. All he knew was that there were four tents here, hopefully an aircraft in each.

"We're going to take one. I want to watch the aerodrome tonight, see what the activity is like and then take one first thing in the morning, before it gets light. We fly low and fast and north. Alright?"  
"Definitely," she squeezed his hand.  
"We need to rest now. A fire would be good but we'd be seen."  
"Cold pie for dinner then."  
"Not pewlet sl… sorry soup?"  
"You, _Mister Pazoo_, are heading for an extended period of no meals at all."

She poked him in the ribs.

They found a hollow in the ground against a tree, broke off some branches and pulled them around themselves for concealment and huddled together in a drift of leaves munching on the last of the wonderful vegetable pastry Sheeta had cooked that last morning at the farm. It was cold, bitterly cold. Pazu dug out his leather cap and gauntlets.

--I--  
---o-o-oOo-o-o---  
I I

Pazu woke, he ached, was stiff from the cold ground. It was still dark. She was pressed up tight against him, her softness against his chest, her arm tight around his neck. Her face against his. She was fast asleep. He kissed her forehead and carefully unwrapped the arm from around himself. He wiggled down out of the poncho, buttoned up the big aviators jacket, pulled on gloves and hat. Moving slowly and hugging the ground he crept down the slope to the fence. Here he paused and studied the field. The sound of an engine had woken him. In one of the four nearby hangars one of the aircraft motors was being run up. As he sat there another started up. It cranked over and over whirring and then fired up, ran roughly for a moment and then roared as the pilot test ran it, the revs screamed and then dropped off to a healthy meaty rumble. A man came out of the far hangar and stood, lighting a cigarette. In the brief flash of light in the doorway behind the man Pazu saw the brown nose of an aircraft and the hangar filled with engine fumes.

He slid forward and carefully climbed the wooden fence, dropping down on the other side. Keeping low to the fence he moved along to behind the first hangar and then scuttled across to it. He reached a doorway and listened. Silence. He pushed the door open and glanced in. The big room was dark and silent. And empty.

He dropped back down, and went around the back of the building and across the gap to the second hangar. This too seemed quiet. When he peeped in here there was an oil lamp burning high up on a metal frame. Below the frame, supported in part by a scaffold was a partly dismantled aircraft, different to the chubby one he'd seen before. This part disemboweled machine was useless to him, so he went back outside and along to the third hangar.

He could get no further. Men stood outside chatting and drinking tea. In the hangar he could hear the plane's engine running. He squatted down and watched.

"Hey! You!"

He looked round in alarm, his heart jumping in his mouth but the shout hadn't been directed at him. A car drew up outside the hangar, a man got out and spoke to the tea-drinkers. In response they put down their mugs and went around the front of the big tent-like structure. Doubling back around the back of this, the second hangar, Pazu went up the far side of it and looked around the front corner. He saw men working outside hangars three and four, pulling open the tarpaulin doors. Light spilled out of them and with it, aero engine fumes, thick and blue. The stink of hot castor oil lubricant came to him, foul smelling.

"Alright, dawn patrol, these two machines, Schuman and Teller, thirty minutes. Shut them down."

The mechanics shut off the two planes motors and then they piled into the car and it bounced off across the grass towards breakfast.

_now? two planes ready?  
_  
In half panic, half exultation, Pazu skittered back as fast as he could to the fence and scrambled over.

"Sheeta, wake up! Wake up! We have to go. Right now!"

She mumbled and moaned, muttered something about _kiss me again_, but he pulled at her shoulder roughly.

"Mmmm… wha?"  
"We're going. Now. Right now, get up."

He picked up the knapsack, stuffed the gun in his belt, put a fistful of bullets in his jacket pocket, found the goggles, rolled up the blanket, grabbed her bag.

"Sheeta! Come _on_!"

He opened his water canteen and splashed freezing cold water in her face.

"Nyaa! Aah! What?"  
"We must move, now, we're taking a plane. It's ready."  
"Alrigh', alrigh', I'm awake. I think."

She got up, dopey and slow. He looked around, they had everything. Grabbing her hand he went back down the slope, half dragging her after him. By the time they'd gone the fifty feet to the airfield perimeter fence she was wide awake, bulky and rustly in the poncho, but awake.

They scrambled over the fence and he led her along it to behind hangar three, then, still running bent double, they cut across to the front corner of the building. Pazu quickly glanced around the opening of the hangar where the aircraft came out. Inside there was a lit lamp on a workbench at the back, but no-one around. There were tool cabinets and various pieces of equipment against the rear wall and the floor was made of wooden boards. In the middle of the hangar sat the aircraft, plump and brown and smelling of warm machinery, its motor ticking as it cooled. It was the most wonderful thing Pazu had seen since he'd spotted the Tiger Moth's glider tangled in the roots of the great tree on Laputa.

_well, apart from the other night, in her bath…_

"Ready?"  
"Hm."  
"Let's go."

He ran to the ladder and went up. The cockpit was open with two side by side seats. It had a low windshield in front. He dumped in the bags and gear and climbed in. For a moment Sheeta didn't come up but then she did and plopped down next to him.

"Wooden chocks! I kicked them away."

He gave her a thumbs up. He looked at the controls. A semi-circular yoke-stick, which was normal, foot pedals for the rudder, a throttle lever, a fuel mixture quadrant, propeller pitch control, oil temperature, pressure and engine revolutions gauges, a compass, altimeter. It all seemed to be there. Starter, no starter. There was an electrical on switch and a fuel start setting which he engaged, and the gas tank open valve.

"Hm, nothing's happening. It must be a crank start. Stay here, when I wind up, press that contact button and as soon as it revs up, close that lever there and also that one down to the first notch, yes?"  
"Yes."

He climbed out over her, boots on her lap.

"Ow. Watch it!"

He scurried again down the ladder and round to the back of the machine. On the workbench was a big metal crank handle, a Z shape. He slotted it into an oily opening that was helpfully labeled "STARTER HANDLE ONLY. REMOVE UPON MOTOR RUN UP". He turned the big handle, winding it round and round. Inside the engine casing he heard the crankcase winding, building up pressure in the cylinders, pumping in fuel.

"Now!"

There was an electrical click and the starter motor whirred, winding the propellers around, the machine wobbled and wiggled and then there was an anti-climactic whine as the revs died off and the airscrews stopped.

"Too much fuel! Shut the left hand lever down completely, all the way forwards."  
"Right!"  
"Again, cranking up!"

He put the metal starter handle back in and wound again, it was heavy machinery and made his muscles burn.

"Oi, don't run the damn thing now, Ted, you'll waste fuel!"

Pazu looked around, a man stood in the side door, brown overalls, oil stains and a confused face.

"Contact! Sheeta!"

The motor wound again, it ran, faltered and then with a whoosh and a jet of blue smoke it roared into life. The airframe jittered and rattled, snuffling like a happy animal. Pazu moved. Fast.

"Hey! Who the hell are you?"

The man ran to the plane, Pazu shot up the stepladder and ran across Sheeta who squeaked, she reached out an arm and pushed the ladder over, the ground crewman leapt aside as it fell.

"Oi! Stop!"

Pazu sat, adjusted fuel mixture and airscrew pitch and pulled on the throttle. The motor behind them roared, the back of the canvas hangar exploded and things flew in all directions, hurled by the prop wash. The plane however sat still.

"Get the hell out of there! Now!"

Pazu pulled the revolver out of his belt and gave it to Sheeta.

"Wave this at him."

She did, poking it out over the side of the cockpit. Pazu didn't see her but she cocked the hammer back with both thumbs and slid the safety off. The man saw this and moved. Fast.

"Hey!" Pazu heard an exclamation and footsteps running over wooden boards, he looked over, the man went out the door. Sheeta carefully lowered the hammer and slipped the gun's safety lever back to LOCK.

"What's that?"  
"Where?"  
"Down there? Red handle with a black button on?"

She reached for it, pulled the handle up, pressed the button and let go. The aircraft shot forwards smashing them both against the rear bulkhead, Pazu let off on the throttle.

"Oh! Wheel brakes!"  
"I think so!"

They both had to yell at the tops of their voices. Behind them an alarm bell was clanging. From the wooden huts on the far side of the field a lorry came, men hanging out the sides. Some waved rifles. The aircraft bounced across the grass.

"You're going towards them!"  
"Yes, runway's this way, need to get over there and turn left!"  
"Take off anywhere! Now!"  
"Can't! Cross wind! Need smooth grass!"  
"Hurry up they're very close!"  
"Hold on!"

Pazu kicked the rudder bar left and the plane slewed right, seeming to tilt on its tall undercarriage. He was taxiing much too fast. Pointing down the field he opened up the engine and the plane roared across the grass, bouncing and leaping, Sheeta, not holding onto anything, was almost thrown out.

"For heaven's sake, are we going to drive to Gondoa?"

At the end of the airstrip Pazu slowed and swung the machine around, facing up the smooth grass runway. The problem was that now, two thirds of the way along it, two trucks were stopped and a line of men were coming their way. For a moment he watched them, looked at the distances involved.

"Sheeta, we might not make this!"  
"Oh!"  
"But if we don't!"

He turned the flaps to their take off setting, wound the propeller pitch back to maximum angle so it would bite the air harder and opened the throttle. The motor screamed and the machine leapt forwards.

"WHAT?"  
"I LOVE YOUR PEWLET SOUP!"

He grinned at her like an idiot. She held onto the cockpit rim.

"PAETSU! IF WE DON'T MAKE THIS, I WANT YOU TO KNOW…!"

Her voice was broken and stuttery from the furious bumping of plane over grass.

"YES?"  
"YOU'RE THE MOST BEAUTIFUL USELESS LUMP I'VE EVER MET!"

The aircraft accelerated down the field. Several of the men across the airstrip knelt and Pazu faintly heard the popping of rifles. There was a _snick!_ Of a shot passing through something. It wasn't him, he glanced at her.

"ALRIGHT?"

She stuck a thumb up and made herself smaller in her seat. As the plane bounced towards them, the men scattered to the sides, some still shooting as the craft roared past. Pazu glanced at the engine revs indicator. It was over the red line. Nothing else he could do, they would either get airborne and live or they'd hit those lorries and die. He hunched lower instinctively. Her hand came out and pressed his arm.

Then, suddenly the bouncing crashing motion of wheels on grass stopped, he pulled back on the stick and they went. The two lorries passed beneath them, whooshing by. There was a bang as the nose wheel hit the canvas roof of one of them.

The plane climbed and Pazu eased back on the fuel mixture and propeller pitch, set the flaps for cruising flight. He kept the throttle open, they needed to be away from here fast. The roar of sound lessened. They could talk without tearing their vocal chords. They still needed to shout, just not scream any longer.

"Sheeta! I'm sorry! I lied to you!"  
"What?"  
"I feel bad about this! You see, I don't love your pewlet soup!"

He glanced at her and she gave him a stern, schoolmistress look.

"That's alright, Pazu! I lied to you!"  
"Oh."  
"You're not the most beautiful useless lump I ever met!"  
"I see."  
"Actually, I don't think you're a useless lump at all! Just the rest was true!"

She looked out of her side of the aircraft and watched the dawn as it bled pink across the sky, its inquisitive fingers searching into the valleys and farmyards, over the woods and the fields white with frost. Quaint little farms and tumbledown barns might be cosy, but now then, _this_ was traveling.

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_21 March 2007 _

_For author notes about Chapter Twenty Seven, please see my forum (click on my pen name)_


	29. Chapter 28 : Flight

**Chapter Twenty Eight - Flight  
**  
The fun and the excitement and the beauty of the dawn didn't last long. At high speed it was bitterly cold in the open cockpit and below them the countryside was ravaged by war. The further north they went the more bleak and mangled Marinaer became. "Like flying over hell" Pazu had thought. They saw whole villages and towns reduced to smoking ruin, lines of men in fields lay contorted and broken and bloody, the harvest of the machine gun. Pretty farms shattered by shelling and canals burst and leaking over the fields, in some places it was so muddy it was impossible to see where the line of the canal or river had been, so much water lay on the land. It did seem though that as they flew on, the character of the battle below them changed. They came to an area where the line of combat seemed to be no longer facing north to south but east to west. More and more they saw lines of soldiers, horsemen and vehicles moving west. Sheeta pointed out the green coated soldiers, looking like those they had seen on the Goliath and who had hunted them in Slag's Ravine. They looked like Numenaorian soldiers but what they were doing this far north, and marching west neither of them could fathom.

Nor, after a while, did they care. They soon had other things to concern them.

For a time they didn't know what kind of aircraft they had stolen. Pazu could find no guns on it, not even one machine gun. It seemed to be not very fast either but then, under a hatch behind her, Sheeta discovered a large metal box, a big plate camera bolted to the floor of the machine and pointing downwards. They had stolen a photographic reconnaissance aircraft. The camera was huge, as big as a bath, and obviously heavy, it would have been useful to get rid of it but it was securely bolted down and would need the whole upper fairing of the fuselage taking off to get out.

Pazu kept low, as low as he could, and fast. Their ride was like a roller coaster at a fairground, roaring over hedges and streams, darting around buildings and twisting between tree tops, banking and weaving. At first Sheeta had been afraid, and she had buckled on her seatbelt but as she realized Pazu wasn't actually insane or had a strong desire to splash them over the walls of some church, she settled down and enjoyed it. Tucking the poncho up around her ears and keeping out of the howling wind she sometimes watched the crazy twisting landscape writhe below them and sometimes watched him, his arms on the controls, the concentration and even, at times, the delight on his face. She delighted in seeing him happy, he was full of life, and she was in love. She wanted to tell him, soon, perhaps, when the moment was right, but not now.

Pazu kept glancing behind and asked her to check on her side as well. They were shot at a lot, the soldiers just seemed to shoot at anything that came over, friend or foe. Nothing hit them as far as they could tell but it seemed that sooner or later, one of the units they'd flown over would telephone a headquarters and report them. Sheeta, eyesight never failing her, saw them first. Marinaen flaptors, three of them, a pilot and rifleman on each, sleek and insect like, closing on them from behind. She shouted to Pazu and he pressed lower over the controls and squeezed the plane lower over the fields, and faster.

"How much fuel do we have?"  
"No idea!"

They'd been flying two hours at least and it wasn't a large machine, their fuel couldn't last much longer. Ahead they saw rising land, and forests. The farmland below them ended at a wide river and they were suddenly over trees, big ancient forest, oak, ash, elm, sycamore, beech. Big trees stretching ahead for miles, their leaves brown and red and russet and golden, falling, bare branches. The land was rising too, rising towards hills, high and hazy in the northern distance. Pazu glanced behind and took the aircraft lower.

"Hold on, I'm going to try and lose them!"

He went down below treetop height and began a dangerous game of cat and mouse, banking and twisting through the gaps between the trees. The three flaptors, more nimble, smaller, and quicker, stayed with him, weaving and swooping. Sheeta watched him, the sweat on his face, his jaw clamped in concentration, his arms sweeping the control yoke this way and that, fighting the forces that wanted to send their machine the wrong way. She glanced behind.

"_Paetsu_, they're closer!"

He saw a gap and swung hard right, the plane stood on its wingtip, he went lower and a bang and shower of leaves told where their wheels had hit branches to their left. The gap ahead was smaller. Too small, but there was daylight to the left. He had no idea how much daylight but it was the only gap he could see. Twisting the stubby winged craft right over it swept from a vertical right bank, upside down and then stood on its other wingtip. Sheeta screamed as the force of the turn pressed her down into her seat. She saw a tree much too close, then daylight and then they were through. He banked right again, even tighter, even faster and the plane creaked and the engine screamed. Sheeta glanced back, something was spinning through the air behind them, branches and a turning fluttering thing, fluttering down.

"One of them crashed!"

The third steep turn swept them up an avenue of beech and this narrowed at the end. Pazu could see no way out. He hauled back on the control yoke and the craft complained and then soared, its nose seeming to kiss the brown trees ahead of it. Once climbing he let it go past the vertical then cut power, hauled hard back on the stick and kicked the rudder, pumping it hard, hard, hard. The nose of the plane went over, turning, stalling. Sliding back, it tumbled down, spinning and Pazu slammed the throttle open, banked right and came out of the stalling loop turn. Sheeta squealed as blue sky replaced brown trees and then brown trees came back, tumbling, over and over. A small buzzing green flaptor shot past them, turning, the gunner's face disbelieving.

"Come ON!"

Pazu cursed as the motor ran roughly, stalled then barked again and roared, he hurled the plane back down, back the way they had come, he sped back down the beech avenue and at the end swung right, banking hard through a clear space he'd seen earlier. Sheeta was gasping, her heart bounded inside her. They had gained a lot of space and Pazu kept on banking this way, that way, left, and left, and right all the time low and below the trees. She glanced behind. No sign of their pursuers.

Then their fuel, and their luck, ran out. The motor coughed once, again then began to run choppy and the airframe rattled, juddered. Pazu pumped the reserve tank feed but the lever ran slack, there was no pressure in there.

"No fuel! Taking her down! Hold tight!"

He saw a clearing, small, brown and oval shaped, he closed the throttle and dipped the nose. The motor rattled, coughed again loudly and went quiet. The silence was deafening, the wind whispered past them and the day was beautiful, the forest golden. A beautiful day for gliding, Sheeta thought. They coasted in. She glanced behind.

"Pazu! They've caught up!"

He banked into the open space, pulled right and then hauled the nose up, flaring, stalling, bleeding off speed. The plane fluttered down, its spindly undercarriage bounced, it leapt thirty yards then came down again, rolled across the ground, spewing leaves and hit a log. The nose wheel crumpled and the machine tipped up, standing on it's nose. A final crunch and they were down.

"Out, out! Run! Trees right!"

Unbuckling their harnesses they leapt out and went for cover. Behind them the two remaining flaptors hovered down, the pair of riflemen jumped off and the pilots lifted away, high over the trees.

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_22 March 2007 _

_For author notes about Chapter Twenty Eight, please see my forum (click on my pen name)_


	30. Chapter 29 : Aminhir Muonith Amur

**Chapter Twenty Nine – Aminhir-Muonith-Amur **

He knew that their best chance of evading capture was to keep moving and put distance between themselves and the two men. But it was easier to stay still, more tempting to hide, more satisfying to curl into a ball and hope they went away. The scared child in him told him to do that. But while his heart needed to, his mind fought the urge. Every direction was the same, trees, undergrowth. The two men were somewhere to the left of the middle of the clearing working their way closer. He and she were near the top end, forest behind them. It pained him to leave the aircraft, everything was in it, absolutely all they had except the revolver and the poncho. He told her to take it off, they would move faster without it. He checked in his pocket but all the bullets had fallen out, except one. While they must have been looping the loop. All they had now was a gun, seven bullets and the clothes they stood up in.

They had no choice, they went. Sheeta, as usual, went on ahead, Pazu followed looking behind, watching for pursuit.

It never occurred to him for them to split up, getting lost together was bad enough, separated it would have been hopeless. So he was surprised when the two soldiers split up. He thought later that they had their pilots above them somewhere and could signal to them. But he didn't consider these things at the time.

They had been working their way up a gentle slope, leaf strewn and with open ground under the oak and birch trees. He'd stopped to look back and seen the movement, the flicker of a grey-blue coat. He glanced round. Sheeta was a half dozen tree trunks ahead of him, watching him. He gestured to her to keep still, stay low.

Down the slope the soldier moved again, working his way up towards them. Not far now. Pazu looked for the second man but could see nothing. The soldier broke cover and came slantwise up the slope only twenty or thirty yards away. He ducked behind a tree bole. Pazu gripped the revolver, hammer back, safety off. The man moved again and Pazu raised the gun, gripped tight with both hands, aimed and fired. He let fly two shots and the beastly thing kicked like a horse almost knocking him over. There was a crash as the soldier either dived or fell. Pazu ran forwards gun out. The man lay behind a fallen log, rolling on the ground. One of Pazu's shots had gone through the fleshy part of his leg. The man looked up, clutching his thigh. The boy stood over him, pointing the gun at his face. He thought of a shed, of an untidy pile of bodies, of a small pathetic tangle of blonde curls. He hated this soldier but he couldn't bring himself to pull the trigger. He moved, kicking the rifle away from the man and then running to pick it up. He moved away towards Sheeta.

Pazu ducked down low and ran after her, she had gone left around two large trees into a small clearing that he could just see up the slope. It never ceased to amaze him how quick she was. As he ran to the left he heard the shot, a loud dull report, much deeper in tone than the small popping of the pistols that had been fired at him before. He saw both of them at once, Sheeta had come to a stop on this side of the clear space and beyond her, not twenty feet away was the blue coated soldier.

The two soldiers had split up, one had come up this side of the clearing, the other had come up the far side. When Sheeta had reached the top she had run straight into him. The man held his rifle at the hip and smoke twisted lazily up from the muzzle, he shifted his right hand and pulled the breech bolt back and down and the shiny brass cartridge ejected, smoking and spinning lazily end over end. It seemed to take for ever to reach the ground, leaving a spiral of powder smoke as it turned. Sheeta didn't move. Upright, hands at her sides, she watched the soldier, his warning shot had gone over her head. Pazu never stopped to think, not for a second. All he knew was the raging voice in his head

_not again, not again, never again, you won't take her  
_  
Bent double, he moved around a low bush on Sheeta's left, went down on one knee, dropped the rifle, lifted the revolver in both hands and fired. Pazu saw the soldiers face, he was young, very young, not much older than himself. The boy soldier only had a second to notice Pazu but Pazu saw the expression on the boy's face clearly. That expression stayed in Pazu's memory for ever. The boy looked scared, and shocked, as though he had done something awful, that he regretted. Terrible regret filled his eyes.

Kneeling and being down slope the bullet from Pazu's gun traveled upwards. It struck the soldier in the throat and passing through his windpipe and spine, it exited at the base of his skull. The boy probably never even noticed Pazu had fired and he was dead before his body had come to rest crumpled backwards in the undergrowth.

Pazu, shaking, stood and went forward, looking around. He glanced up through the trees but the two pilots in their flaptors were nowhere to be seen. He listened for them. The forest was silent.

"That was close. Come on, we need to move, get away from here."

He turned to her and saw the look on her face, mild surprise was there, puzzlement. Then her knees bent and she gracefully folded down and sank to the forest floor, almost as though tired and needing to rest. From a kneeling position she lay back and the fact that she didn't use her arms to lower herself but hit the ground with a bump sent a burning taste of worry through Pazu's heart.

"What is it? Sheeta?"

He ran to her. She lay on the damp leaves staring at the trees overhead.

"Thank you. Pazu, thank you for saving me."

Then he saw the circle, a small dot no bigger than the tip of his finger just to the left of her centre, below her breast, near her heart. As he looked at it, at the slightly burned cloth at the edge of the hole in her shirt, he saw red spread around the hole, a perfect circle of red growing larger. For a moment he didn't understand what it meant.

"Pazu? Are you there?"

_shot. she had been shot. no. how could she be shot? she was so fast, so quick, so sure. she couldn't be shot. she was too perfect. there was too much life in this beautiful body for it to be shot. _

"I'm here. Sit up, let me look at it."  
"I'm sorry Pazu. I ran on ahead, I should have stayed with you."

_you always run on ahead, and I always follow_.

"Don't talk, let me see the wound."  
"It's alright Pazu, I'll be fine soon. It doesn't hurt."  
"Shush, let me look."

He tore the shirt, tore the vest beneath and opened them. The bullet wound was small and just below where her baby would one day feed, but from it blood pumped out at a rate that made Pazu feel ill, too fast, much too fast. Then he saw the ground beneath her, the stain of blood spreading there, a sheet of it, a river, it ran and soaked the leaves. A tiny entry wound but where the bullet had come out… for the blood to flow like that Pazu knew it must be a big wound. He knew then. He knew she was dying.

"You'll be alright. It's fine. Let me hold you."

He bent over her and lifted her in his arms, her head rolled back and he moved his arm up behind her head to raise it.

"I want to hold you, but I can't move my arms. Why can't I move my arms?"  
"Shush, quiet now, I'm here."

_don't die. you can't die. you're taking me home. to my home, our home. sheeta, how can you die? how can I follow you? I want to follow you _

"Pazu, you saved me. In the end you saved me."  
"Sheeta I don't think I did."  
"Yes you did, the day we met. That very first day, on your house roof. Feeding the doves. That was when you saved me. I knew then that you had come back. I had heard about you, but never thought you would be the one to save me."  
"Shush, what are you saying?"  
"It was you, _Paetsu, Paetsu Fuhmonhir_, the Forgotten Prince."  
"You're not making sense."  
"And I even kissed you. I never thought it would be me. You are so beautiful when you kiss."

Pazu began to cry. He knew he shouldn't, he'd not paid the price to do so, crying now wasn't manly and he had no right. But this time he couldn't help it and the tears fell from his face onto hers.

"But I never said... I wanted to but never did. I wanted to tell you. How much…"

Weeping he lifted her against him and pressed his face to her chest.

_you can't go. how can I follow when you're not in front? where will I go? _

"Sheeta, please don't go. Don't leave me."  
"I'm not leaving _Paetsu_. Don't fret, I'm just going on ahead a little way. You'll catch up with me soon. And we'll go home together. We'll take in the harvest."  
"Stop it! Sheeta! Please don't!"

She coughed and a bubble of blood came out of her mouth. He kissed it away, in his mind her blood tasted like strawberries, _reustaub stimmer_, he loved the taste of her.

"The stone…"  
"What?"  
"The stone _Paetsu_. Take it. Take it and say this. _Aminhir Muonith Amur."  
_"I can't use the stone."  
"You have to, I'm too weak. I'm going on ahead. You have to say it. It's not right for me to use it on myself. But be quick. _Maerth-dhu_ is coming. In the forest, I can feel him. Don't let him find me."  
"Sheeta."  
"Be quick _Paetsu Fuhmonhir, _for the doves need feeding. Feed the doves _Paetsu_, and take care of them, like you did with me."

A moment's silence and then,

_"Yau he-ayerth al om-e tuh."_

He didn't want to let her go, he couldn't bear to let her out of his arms, his sobs coming in great heaving gasps, he lay her down on the wet ground. She coughed again and a trickle of blood flowed from her lips. He untied the blue stone from its leather string and held it. It was warm, the blood that pumped in her body had warmed it, the blood that flowed on the forest floor.

She spoke one last time, her voice was weak, very faint.

"I'm glad it was you, but I'm sorry I never said it. But you know _Paetsu_, you know I felt it. Always."

Her eyes closed.

_you can't go. how can you go? don't go_.

Here in the forest she would die. Here among the flowers and trees and growing things, surrounded by life she would die. Here where Lucita the Earth Mother was near and strong. She wouldn't have far to go to return to her arms. Just a short walk for you, Sheeta, and a big warm cuddle would be waiting for you.

Her chest rose, one last big breath she drew in trying to suck in life a moment longer. Then she exhaled, it was a sound like her speaking, like that time she'd breathed on him and her breath had lit a candle in his heart. He looked at the stone. He didn't understand why she'd done this. How could he do anything, a stupid clumsy miners boy? He gripped it tightly feeling its warmth, its round shape. What had she said?

_Aminhir Muonith Amur _

Through his sobs he spoke the words.

"_Aminhir Muonith Amur." _

He spoke them hesitantly, unsure, full of doubt. Nothing happened. Somewhere in the tree above a bird sang. How could this work? But it was all he had now, the only thing he had. He couldn't follow where she was going, so all he could do was hope. He sniffed loudly, wiped his eyes and gripping the stone in one hand and placing the other on her heart, he drew a deep breath. It would be better if he had faith.

"_Aminhir Muonith Amur."  
_  
Louder

"_Aminhir Muonith Amur!" _

Again

_"AMINHIR MUONITH AMUR!" _

He spoke the words over and over, repeating like a litany, he carried on, a minute, two minutes, it wasn't working. It had to work, she had said it would work. It must work!

"_AMINHIR MUONITH AMUR!" _

It was no good. The light was changing, evening was here, the day was ended. Pazu hung his head, closed his eyes and let the tears flow. The sunset came into the clearing and he felt it warm on his face, the warm breeze of day's end blew against his closed eyelids, the brightness of the sun felt right, it was a good time to die, in the evening, with the sun, go home and rest Sheeta. I will come. Some day I will come. Wait for me. Pazu collapsed onto the still warm body beneath him, and his sobbing, the sound of a broken heart, sang through the forest.

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_19 – __22 March 2007_

_For author notes about Chapter Twenty Nine, please see my forum (click on my pen name) _


	31. Chapter 30 : Sunset

**Chapter Thirty - Sunset **

The wind was stronger now, it pulled at his hair, his shirt sleeves flapped, leaves skittered across the ground. He had to lean against it to stay upright, it was so strong. And the glowing of the sunset was purer than he'd ever remembered it. The pale light was so strong now it even came through his eyelids, he had to squeeze his eyes shut tight. The pure blue of the end of the day was painful. The wind roared and howled and he pressed harder down onto the softness beneath him, he felt her move, the wind was blowing so hard, he had to hold her down or she would blow away. He felt the wind buffet his shoulder, stroke his arm and lay against his face. He opened his eyes. The blue sunset was in his fist, its dazzling rays sliced through between his fingers and lit the forest with painful swirling light. It turned, revolved, curled around and up like a slow cyclone. The whirlwind of air and sound seemed to not be part of the spinning light. The light was slow, pale and gentle, the air was powerful, eager, a struggling frenzied thing. The two elements, air and light were one, opposites and enemies.

It would be best if she had the light, it was hers anyway. The gentle light was hers, the whirlwind he didn't connect to at all, it didn't seem to be a part of someone like her. He lifted the hand with the stone in, taking his other, bloodied hand from her breast. It just seemed the right thing to do to lay the hand with the stone against the wound, because that was where it should be. His mop of hair flapped and strained about his face now and the source of the blue typhoon wanted to pick him up and throw him away, but he dug his toes into the leaf loam, opened the hand (the brightness of the bluest sunset he'd ever witnessed burned his eyes until they hurt) and lay it, palm down over the bullet wound, holding the stone down and holding her body at the same time.

There was a roar and gust of something so strong he thought he would die. He felt he was in the presence of some monstrous angry invisible creature. It picked him up and threw him across the ground. A bolt of pain as his head struck something hard. He shut his eyes tight but through the lids he could still see the blue white diamond of light of the stone burning against her body. And then, though his eyes were still shut, he saw her hand lift and close over it and hold it and the blue white light ended and the roaring storm of wind left the forest. The swaying tree branches became still. Leaves fluttered through the clearing and came to rest.

He opened his eyes. The first thing he saw was her. Her face was turned to him, she looked at him, weakly smiling.

"Sheeta?"  
"_Taeg Paetsu_. You great clumsy lump. I knew you could…"

Her voice was low and dry, thin as paper, she sounded very ill. He got up, ran to her and fell on her, scooping her up and crushing her to him. Weak and disoriented, she couldn't hold him, she merely lay confused but happy, in his arms.

"_Sheeta!_"

He held her so hard, he never wanted to let go, never. Not for one second, not until he died. He lifted her face in both hands and stared at her, unable to believe this was happening.

"Thank you _Paetsu_."

Tears pouring down his face, he kissed her.

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_19 - 22 March 2007 _

For author notes about Chapter Thirty, please see my forum (click on my pen name)


	32. Chapter 31 : Cave

**Chapter Thirty One - Cave  
**  
Shelter and warmth, that was what she needed, and food. She was shivering, and she was paler than he'd ever seen, pinched and grey and she kept coughing thinly. Shelter, warmth and food. He had none of them. He took off the thick fur lined leather aviators jacket and dressed her in it, pulling her arms through it, like dressing a broken doll. He buttoned it, turned up the collar. Something seemed important, trivial yet vital. The blue stone was in her hand. He uncurled the tight fist on her chest and put the cord around her neck, tying a tight knot. He looked at the stone and was shocked, it was pale grey, and a weak mist swirled slowly there. It looked like ice, someone dreaming of ice. He tucked it into her torn shirt and buttoned up the ruined garment as best he could. He didn't know how he knew but he just knew that the best place for the stone was on her breast, against her heart.

"I'm going to find shelter, put you down somewhere, then go back to the aircraft. Everything we have is on it."  
"Don't…"  
"I'll be fine, first you need to be safe."  
"…go."  
"Come on, up you come."

He slipped his arms under her shoulders and knees and lifted, he almost toppled over backwards. He had expected her to weigh the same as she had at the stream, that first morning when he took her to bathe. But she weighed much less, a lot less. He looked at the ground, a wide irregular red-brown stain marked where she'd lain, the size of it made him feel weak. Pints of blood had come out of her.

He walked through the forest, north. He staggered for a mile or so unsure what he was seeking, a hollow tree maybe, a depression in the ground he could cover over with branches. Anything for protection, concealment. The ground continued to rise. He listened to the forest sounds, birds, trees rustling, the breeze. He strained his ears but could hear nothing mechanical, no flying machines. Through the trees ahead was a slope, a cliff, overhung with ivy and creepers. As he approached he saw it was high, a broken off slab of hill, as old as the rocks around it. He could see the top and the highest branches of the tall oaks and ash only just reached up there. Too steep to climb, he wondered which way to turn.

"_Paetsu…_"  
"Shush, it's alright, I'll find a place soon."  
"_Urun…_"(1)  
"What?"

She lifted her left hand a little and pointed to his right.

"_Urun…_"

The arm flopped down, weak as her crumpled voice. Without questioning he went the way she had pointed. A half mile along the cliff he came to the cave. It was both wide and high, big enough to drive a wagon into. The curved top was over hung with ivy. He went cautiously in. The floor sloped, to the right on the lower side years of leaves and rubbish and mosses had collected. He went in a few yards behind a tangle of bushes that grew at the entrance near the light. It quickly became dark here and he could see no end to the cave. Often wild animals would live in caves, boar, wolves, maybe even a bear. He stood a few minutes listening, sniffing but he could hear nothing at all and smelled only the dank leaf mould. Turning he lay her down in the soft mossy hollow against the downhill wall.

"Sheeta, I'm going back to the aircraft. I'll be back as fast as I can."  
"_Paetsu…_"  
"Shhh."

He kissed her forehead.

"I love you. I'll be straight back. Trust me."

--I--  
---o-o-oOo-o-o---  
I I

He went back the way they had come and stopped at the place she had fallen. He picked up the rifle and took the dead boy-soldier's ammunition belt. He thought of taking his coat but it was soaked in blood. Looking at the boys pale face, a look of sadness on it, Pazu reached out with one hand and closed the boy's eyes. He lowered his head.

"I'm sorry. I had no choice. I think you're sorry too. I know you didn't mean to shoot her. Look. I don't hate you, you were just doing what you were trained to do. I just did what I had to. Sorry, this wasn't how we were meant to meet."

He picked up the soldier's rifle, stripped the ammunition from it and threw it far into the undergrowth. Slinging the ammunition belt over his shoulder and checking the other rifle was loaded, he went back to the aircraft, on the way collecting the poncho from behind a tree where Sheeta had dropped it.

The aircraft still stood in the clearing, upended on its nose. He wondered if they might still be here, watching, waiting for him to come back. There was only one way to find out. He climbed onto the plane's wing and bounced down into the cockpit. Her clothing bag, the knapsack and the blanket were all on the floor. Nothing had been touched.

--I--  
---o-o-oOo-o-o---  
I I

She lived. Just. Pazu afterwards felt an inkling of how close it had been. Not just from her condition, but from the stone. Sheeta became coherent on the third day and strong enough to move on the fourth. The stone didn't regain it's colour for a whole day and the smoky core wasn't calm for another day and a half. She had said it took three days to calm after the spell of destruction. A spell powerful enough to destroy Laputa. Bringing her back from the brink of death had taken almost the same amount of power. For three days and four nights Pazu kept vigil in the cave. He dragged branches across the entrance to make it difficult for an intruder to get in. He kept one of the guns with him all the time. He brought in a supply of firewood and although he wasn't sure what was good and what wasn't, he picked small white mushrooms, berries and some herbs. He also picked grasses and some broad leafed plants. He simply trusted instinct and what he had learned from her. He smiled at this, even when she was unconscious he followed her lead. The knapsack contained the last vegetables from the farm's garden. He built up a fire, poured their water in a pan and added all the vegetables, the white mushrooms and the plants he'd picked. He kept this broth going all the time, topping up the water and adding whatever he found to it. He found a spring along the cliff a half mile away and would walk the mile there and back several times a day, collecting water, washing clothes, washing himself.

At first she would only drink water, then she began to accept the broth in small amounts. Pazu ate and drank almost nothing, he gave it all to her, he didn't care how much hard work it was, he just wanted her to live. She was too weak to move and would use the toilet where she lay. He didn't mind. He undressed her and warmed water on the fire and washed her, her most intimate places. He would go out and bring in fresh leaves and grasses for her bed each time she soiled it. He took off her bloody shirt and vest and lifted them. There was a huge hole in the back of the shirt, seeing that hole, one he could put the palm of his hand through, he realized how close it had been. If the soldier had raised his gun barrel an inch he would have shot her in the head and killed her instantly.

Looking down at her naked form, he found the cleanest piece of clothing they had, the shirt he'd slept in at the farm, and pouring warm water on her, he bathed her. The bullet hole was gone, and her back, under the thick crust of dried blood, was perfect. He washed her chest carefully, she was so soft there, so pretty, he touched her gently, he didn't want to hurt her or damage anything. He didn't know if these soft places would damage, so he just touched lightly. During these baths, or when he cleaned her after the toilet, he felt none of the powerful guilty urges he had felt before. He was filled only with a burning desire to help, to serve her, to make her well. And one afternoon, it came to him, why he was doing this. He knelt and stopped washing and simply looked. He put the palm of one hand to her cheek.

"I love you. Sheeta, I love you. So… well, just don't die. Please."

He would take their clothes to the spring and beat the dirt out of them, dry them on a branch by the fire. When she was well enough to sit up and eat and drink he flooded over with questions, but held back until she was better. One morning, four days after the plane crash, he was sleeping. As usual she had the poncho and the blanket, he wore the jacket and lay curled into a ball. There was movement beside him. He half opened his eyes. She was there, close, she lifted his arm and came under it and let the arm down across herself. She kissed his face.

"Thank you."

He hugged her and drifted back to sleep.

--I--  
---o-o-oOo-o-o---  
I I

"Who is he?"  
"Who?"  
"This prince, this Foo-moan-heer, person."  
"_Paetsu Fuhmonhir? _How do you know about him?"

It was the morning of day four (or it might have been day five, you know he wasn't sure, the days had become a blur). They were sat by the fire. Breakfast had been the vegetable broth, except now it was only boiled mushrooms and herbs and the broad flat leaves he'd found. Afterwards he brewed tea, a ritual they had come to see as their 'talking time'. Holding her tin mug, she leaned against the wall of the cave, poncho and blanket around her. He sat on a log he had brought in a couple of days ago. He had looked at her earlier and noticed her lips were pink, for the first time in days they had colour, instead of just a slightly darker grey than her face. She still looked very unwell and very thin.

"You said his name when you were… after you… were shot."  
"I did? I don't remember."

Sheeta watched the fire.

"So who is he?"  
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_22 – 23 March 2007 _

_(1) Urun : right. For the sake of completeness, left is "lehn". _

For author notes about Chapter Thirty One, please see my forum (click on my pen name)


	33. Chapter 32 : Paetsu Fuhmonhir

**Chapter Thirty Two - Paetsu Fuhmonhir  
**  
"You mentioned him. When I was holding you. Don't you remember?"

Sheeta stared ahead, through the fire, through the wall of the cave beyond, and into some unfocused distance. Her voice came faintly, as though her mouth were speaking but her mind was elsewhere.

"I remember seeing the soldier. I remember stopping and thinking I should shout a warning to you. Then," her brow furrowed, she thought hard, "then I was in a building. A big building, a huge room. You remember Laputa, that big room with the tree in? It felt like that only without the tree, solid walls on the outside but glass on the inside," Sheeta paused, thinking, rubbing her forehead. She took a sip of tea, "There was blue sky outside and lovely flowers, fields full of flowers. The room was full of people, moving around the edge, thousands of them. Only they weren't people, they were misty, like ghosts. They were listening to a conversation. I was in the middle of the room and there were four people there. A man with a dog's head, a maiden all in white, an old weary man in a traveling cloak with a big stick, like a shepherd's crook, and a man who wore a crown. The dog man and the maiden were arguing. The dog-man wanted me to stay but the woman in white said it wasn't time and I should go back. She said he needed me, and she looked at the man in the crown. I don't know who he was either. The dog-man was really angry, he said he wanted me but the maiden won the argument. The next thing I knew, I was here, and you were feeding me. How long was that?"  
"Three days. It might have been four. You were conscious after three but you might not remember. You don't recall anything then, when you were shot? Nothing at all? All the things you said?"  
"Sorry _Paetsu_, no, nothing at all. I knew I was shot and I knew it was bad, and I heard your voice I think, but the details won't come."  
"You're doing it again."  
"Doing what?"  
"The way you say my name. You keep saying 'payt-soo' instead of 'paz-oo', you've been doing it more and more the last few days."

She smiled shyly at him.

_now is as good a time as any. in fact, now is a very good time. especially in this place_

"_Paetsu_ is Prince. Some Gondoan words are spelled differently for different contexts, usually whether its girl or boy or age or whether the spirit in which they are spoken is friendly or hostile. _Paztsu_ or _Pazsu_ is another spelling of prince, one that implies a prince who is away and will return. I suppose Pazu is closer, but I just think of _Paetsu_, a prince who has come back. If I'm saying _Fuhmonhir, _it should be _Pazsu Fuhmonhir_, the Forgotten Prince. I just prefer _Paetsu Fuhmonhir._ It implies one who was lost and has returned."

She looked at him, her face open, honest, that gentle smile. Something in Pazu came undone, some part of him fell away and he changed.

"My name. Me?"

Her smile broadened, like sunshine. When she smiled like that she was very pretty.

"Yes, _taeg-Paetsu_. You."

She looked down at the leaves, the mosses, she moved her foot through them.

"There were four Kingdoms. I've told you. _Laputa, Lahoromne, Lapendraes _and_ Latormolo_. They were the capital cities. The Tree, The Head, The Heart and The Hand."  
"_Het_, is hand."  
"You learn well. You're right, _het_ is hand. However _het_ is this hand, my hand," she waved it, "your hand. But _tormolo_ means the workman's hand, the craftsman's hand. The hand of one who works or creates things."  
"Me."  
"Hm. You again. That's two reasons. First your name, second you're a craftsman. I think I first felt it in your workshop, where you were building that flying machine. I guessed then. The four kingdoms lived in the sky. Each had its capital, its palace island, and there were about a dozen others in each kingdom, about fifty islands in all."  
"Fifty? There were once fifty Laputas?"  
"Yes, and many of them were huge, like small nations, with fields and farms, forests and lakes. Men would fly between them carrying messages and trading. _Lahoromne _was where the thinkers lived, the planners, the politicians, the law-makers, philosophers. _Lapendraes_ was the home of artists, writers, painters, musicians, poets, storytellers. And lovers," she smiled and looked into the fire.  
"_Pendraes _is heart?"  
"Yes."  
"Hm, I wondered that, a while ago."  
"_Latormolo_ is where the artisans lived. Engineers, builders, craftsmen. Makers of flying machines. Like you, _Paetsu_, like you."  
"And _Laputa?"  
_"_Laputa _was the Tree, the centre, the ruler, the root from which all the other kingdoms grew. Laputans would send people to the other kingdoms and they would stay and learn a skill there, would marry, and raise families. _Laputa_ was the source. Like _Lucita_, you see? _Lucita-Laputa, Laputa-Lucita_, they are almost interchangeable, they share a similar meaning, although one is a place and the other a spirit."

Pazu sipped his tea and wondered.

"Where does _Paetsu Fuhmonhir _fit in?"  
"Hundreds and hundreds of years ago we left the sky and came to earth. No one knows why, but the thing that gets talked about most in the songs and poems is like a disease."  
"An illness?"  
"No, not really, a disease of the heart, an atrophy, a failing, a weakness. The sky nations became corrupt, lazy, selfish, inward looking, they quarreled and fought. Remember when I spoke in the yard in Hamar's wagon? I said how horrible a princess' life was in the old days. It had become a mindless ritual, doing things for the sake of doing them, people made up these ceremonies to hold on to the important past but they forgot and only the ceremonies and rituals were left, so they carried on doing those because that's all they had. They did them but didn't know why. The sky nations suffocated under this burden of regulations and fixed ways. Someone decided to end this by making a new start. On the earth. That was seven hundred years ago, and already so much has been forgotten.

"There was one man though, who didn't forget. The eldest son of the King of _Latormolo. _His name was _Phom_ and he refused to live on the earth. He said the sky was where we should be, it wasn't wrong to live there, it was just us that had lost our way. He said we should change our ways and return to the sky. He argued in the court rooms and throne rooms and was thrown out, disassociated. His father disowned him and sent him away. He never returned. But he became a legend, people wrote songs about his adventures, stories might come back from people who had said they'd met him or heard of him. He became a myth, a part of folklore. People told the stories and sang the songs to their children. Over time he became a symbol, he represented a dream. To not change for the sake of change, to run away from the trials that face us, but to stand up and resist, to change only what's wrong and to hold onto what is right. To press on regardless, against all odds.

"Lots of the stories about him are just made up, silly things. But if you read them all, the poems, the songs, the fairy tales, you can see a thread running through it all. A thread of truth. It seems he traveled far away, to the south. He settled down and married and raised a family. And in his sons he left a seed, a yearning. He passed onto them his dream. He was just one man and couldn't change men's minds. But he taught his sons to hold onto his dream, and told then to teach their sons, and so on. And so, over the centuries men have had this dream of flying, of living in the sky. People say it's where our current flying machines have come from."  
"Dad."

Pazu was looking at her, his face filled with something wonderful, a look of love and of hope.

"Dad had a dream of flying, of finding Laputa."

Sheeta smiled at him.

"Yes, your father too. I think the blood of _Phom_ has run down through the centuries and some of it is in you. You have the soil of a hundred nations in you _Paetsu_, but there is a little trickle of something true there as well. Uncle Pom, you know?"  
"Hm."  
"Him too. As soon as he began talking about the rocks, I guessed. He has flying blood in him too. When he saw my stone he was overcome, do you remember? He said he couldn't bear to look at it. I think it awoke something in him. He might not even have understood, but it touched him. But you, you're special. The stone knows you."

Pazu sat quietly and turned all these things over in his mind.

"No. Can't be. I can't understand this."  
"Why not?"  
"Sheeta there is this huge big problem. It's too much of a co-incidence. You floating down to me that night, from the sky. The Princess of Laputa, the last of a royal line, floats down from the sky right slap into the arms of a boy who's bloodline traces back to the royal house of another of the flying kingdoms. No, it wouldn't happen. That only happens in stories."

She pulled the stone from her neck and held it up.

"What is this _Paetsu_?"  
"Your stone. The stone of the royal family of Laputa."  
"Yes. It has a lot of power. You've seen what it can do. There is much more it can do that you haven't seen. But only royal blood can control it. I can. Muska could. And you can. You just drew a healing spell from it _Paetsu_, a very powerful one. If I have been ill for three or four days then I must have been near death."  
"You lost a lot of blood."  
"That would explain it. The spell of healing can quickly restore wounds, broken bones, damaged organs and so on, but it can't recreate pints of blood. If a body is weak it still has to recover. Do you know what this is?"

She picked up one of the broad oval leaves he'd collected for the broth.

"A leaf."  
"That's good. You're learning about nature fast, I'm impressed."

She gave him a small smile. Pazu was falling in love with that smile.

"We call them _Moyo_ leaves, I don't know their proper name. And this?"

She held up a small white fungus.

"A mushroom."  
"Not just a mushroom, but a _Poki_ mushroom. Guess what we use them for?"  
"Breakfast?"  
"Well, you could do, but it would be a waste. Where did you find these?"  
"Just down here, in the forest."  
"Was it far, were they hard to find?"  
"Not really, I just wandered about for a while and saw them. In a clearing."  
"You 'just wandered about'?"  
"Hm."  
"For a while? And you 'just saw them'?"

She shook her head and looked down, disbelieving. She even chuckled.

"Yes, what's so funny?"  
"And I suppose you have no idea what a boiled soup of _Moyo_ leaves and _Poki _makes?"  
"After three or four days it makes me sick."

She giggled at his beautiful innocence. She was in love with that child, that stupid clueless wonderful child. Then she stared at him, her eyes wide, sparkling. She wasn't laughing any more.

"_Paetsu_, my gorgeous clumsy great lump of a boy, you have no idea do you? You saved my life."  
"No, the stone did that."  
"No, the stone healed my body. The _broth_ saved my life. If you hadn't fed me this, you would have ended up, after a couple of days, sharing a cave with a perfectly healthy dead girl. A girl with almost no blood in her body. We have wise women in our village who have been studying plants and medicine for fifty years who can't make a _Moyo_ broth as good as this. _Paetsu,_ we even have good medicine makers who can't even _find Poki_, let alone get the best from them."

Pazu sat there, looking dumbfounded.

"You have very old blood in you _Paetsu_, royal blood. I know you do. You can draw spells from a royal stone, you can make almost perfect _Moyo_ broth without even _trying_."  
"How do you explain the night you fell then?"  
"The stone did that. Let me show you."

She leaned over, found a stick, then knelt on the floor of the cave and began to draw with it in the dirt. She drew a big 'V' shape.

"Are you alright, getting up?"  
"I think so, I can't think of a better person to be ill with. So, here is the continent we are on."

She drew a horizontal line about one third of the way up the 'V'.

"That's the border between Marinaer and Restormel, Marinaer below, Restormel above. We're in Restormel now, by the way."  
"We are?"  
"Listen. What do you hear?"  
"Nothing."  
"Precisely. Marinaer has a war raging in it in case you've not noticed. Wars are pretty loud things, bombs dropping, cannons firing, airships flying over, you know the sort of thing."  
"Yes, alright, we are in Restormel, no need to rub it in."  
"Rub what in?"  
"How dim I am."

She cleared her throat.

"You said it, not me. Anyway,"

He interrupted

"It's good to see you better. Making me smile. I was very worried."  
"_Paetsu_, come here, kneel."

He did so.

"No, no, here, in front of me."

He shuffled closer.

"Mind Marinaer! You'll squash everyone!"

She put her stick down, rested her hands on her knees and moved her face to his. Two inches from him she stopped. She stared into his eyes. Eyes so innocent, so grey-blue, so powerful. For a while they both just looked, enjoying the closeness of the other. Then slowly she touched her mouth to his. She pressed to him briefly and withdrew.

"Thank you. The beauty of you is, you still don't know what you've done. Every minute of my life from now on, you have given me. I am in your debt for ever."

He felt awkward, embarrassed even. He stood up.

"Now, concentrate. _Here_," she drew a second horizontal line above the first, two thirds of the way up the 'V', "is the border between Restormel and Gondoa. And, down _here_," she drew an egg shaped island standing up on its point, some way below the 'V', "is where you live, Numenaor. Alright so far?"  
"Uh-huh."  
"Slag Ravine, your town, is on Numenaor's east coast."

She put a pebble on the right side of the egg.

"Tepis Fortress, which is where Muska and his happy friends were taking me the night I fell, is here, on the west coast."

Another pebble, on the left side of the egg.

"After Muska kidnapped me from my farm we went to a city in Restormel. I don't know where it was but it was on the west coast. The sun rose inland the morning we left, and it was on our left side. We went south. In a passenger airship so as not to arouse suspicion I think."

She put a third pebble on the left hand side of the 'V' in the middle of the centre band.

"Now then, _Paetsu_, talk to me. Tell me what's wrong here."

He looked at the scratched dirt map. He walked around it.

"Can I have some more broth please?" she asked.

He threw away the last of his tea and spooned a couple of lumps into his mug. It looked like greenish porridge. Leaving the spoon in, he passed it to her. She ate.

"Yes, quite revolting. But you have no idea what good things this is doing to my insides. Have you worked it out yet? Come on, you're an aviator."  
"Is this map in proportion?"  
"Mostly, I think."

He took her stick and scratched a line between the city on Restormel's west coast and Tepis Fortress, a flight path. He looked at it.

"The passenger airship was nowhere near Slag Ravine was it?"  
"Well done. Miner, engineer, pilot, spell caster, medicine man, and now navigator. Each day that goes by you get more and more impressive, you know that don't you?"  
"I'm still working towards a landing you can walk away from."

She gave him a warm smile.

"How far would you say it was from that flight path to Slag's Ravine?"  
"Not sure. It took Dola and me most of the night to fly to Tepis from there. It must be fifty miles."  
"And yet I fell out of that airship. And the stone saved me. I didn't just float down, _Paetsu_. I floated _across_. A long way across. To you. The stone was taking me to you. It knew you were there, somehow it knew."

Pazu looked at the map. He looked up at her.

"The airship was at about – oh, I don't know ten thousand feet, fifteen thousand? Yet the stone took me fifty miles to one side. If it could do that then it could have taken me anywhere, to anyone it thought was the safest, the best person for me to be with. Do you see? It chose you. Out of a whole nation of people, it thought you were the one I needed."

Pazu had an odd feeling inside him, as though he was becoming two people, the old part of him was separating from the new part. All this was too much to take in. The old part of him couldn't understand it, the old him staggered and reeled from all this. Like a boxer beaten in a fight, his old self lurched away and leaned exhausted against the cave wall, breathing hard. What remained where he'd been was no longer him, but someone else, someone _new_. The new him drew in a deep breath and filled new lungs, air had never been here before, the smell of it through his nose was new, the new man stood in a cave and wondered what this new world expected of him. He was a little afraid, his shoulders were no broader than the old him's shoulders, but he looked forward to bearing the load the new him would carry. That was important, that mattered. Because the old him had not really understood her, he had thought he knew her but he hadn't, the old him had wasted time knowing a different girl. Now that Sheeta had shown him everything over these last days, and today told him this, his old self was no longer enough, not strong enough or quick enough, not noble enough. Someone else was needed. He was needed, the new him. It was really important how he behaved now, what he did and how he did it really mattered. To him, yes, but particularly to her. Pazu looked at the old him by the cave wall. He was just a small boy, too young, too ignorant about too many things. Someone who thought princesses lived in palaces and that he was just a delivery boy.

_go back to the ravine, pazu. go home to where you belong, to the world you know. you did well to get us this far but I'm needed now. no hard feelings, friend, but you stick to what you know, eh? bye. take care._

Pazu felt a little sad as the old him raised a hand in farewell and walked out the cave. Pazu would miss him, it was fun being brave and strong and ignorant about almost everything, but that couldn't go on, he had to be someone different now.

"And another thing, young man."  
"What?"  
"Under this poncho, I seem to be completely undressed. Would you happen to know anything about that?"  
"I took your clothes off."  
"Oh, you did, did you?"  
"Do you trust me?"  
"Of course, I wouldn't be sitting undressed like this in a cave in a forest with someone I didn't trust now, would I?"  
"You are sounding a lot better, Sheeta, I'm pleased."

She lifted up the mug of _Moyo_ broth.

"Thanks to you."  
"Anyway, I washed you. I had to check the wounds. And, um…" he went red  
"And um, what?"  
"You made a bit of a mess, in your bed. A couple of times. I washed you then as well."

Her mouth hung open.

"You did? What did you do?"  
"Wipe you, wash you, get clean bedding, clean leaves."

Now it was her turn to go red.

"Oh. No one's done that, not since I was a baby."  
"Don't be upset. I enjoyed it."

She looked shocked.

"You _enjoyed_ it?"  
"Well, not when you say it like that, not like… oh… _kaesu_, for example. But it was something that I wanted to do, to help. To make you better…"

Feeling very stupid about this whole conversation, his voice trailed off. She stood up and walked to him. She slipped her arms around his waist and lay her head on his chest.

"_Now_ I know why the stone chose you."  
"And now, Sheeta, no excuses. I want to learn. _Everything_, none of that rubbish about letting this all be lost. Now I know this, and I know it's my history, I want to know."

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_23 March 2007 _

_For author notes about Chapter Thirty Two, please see my forum (click on my pen name)_


	34. Chapter 33 : Library

**Chapter Thirty Three - Library  
**  
It began to snow. This far north autumn was nearly squeezed out between the harvest and the winter. They had been in the cave a week, Pazu had cleared the forest in a mile radius of almost everything edible. And much of the firewood. He thought she was fit to travel. Two days ago she'd said she was but he refused to move unless she was completely well. Now, he thought they needed to be moving, if they didn't go now, the snow might get worse and then things could get bad.

"When you said you wanted to learn everything, you didn't know what you were saying."  
"I expect that's true, but I want to be part of the world you're in, know what you know. I want to hear the songs and poems and stories, learn the language, the history."  
"And what if, one day you pass that on to someone else and they turn bad and try to do what Muska did?"

_pass that on to someone else? children? my children? our children? _

"I'll teach them so they won't want to do that. If I see even a hint of Muska in them, I'll stop teaching that and try to teach them some humility and responsibility."  
"You might not know. People keep things hidden."  
"I can't go through life doing nothing, Sheeta, in case the consequences are bad."  
"Let me show you then. Come on. Bring your bag."

He expected her to take him out of the cave and into the forest but she didn't. She held out her hand, which he took and she turned and led him deeper into the cave. He'd gone in a few yards when they'd first arrived, just checking in case anything with big teeth already lived here but he'd found nothing and turned back. The cave floor sloped down to the right at the same angle all the way back, and it didn't seem to get any narrower. It was pitch black.

"Light your lamp."

He did so. They were at a place where the cave narrowed, a kind of natural arch. There were a few tree roots coming through the roof here but otherwise it was blank black rock, no light here for plants to live.

"Careful, watch your step."

She went down ahead of him and he placed his foot down too. Not a slope but a step. He lifted his lamp high and what he saw knocked the breath from his body. They were at the top of a flight of steps, a long flight descending into blackness. The rock walls were smooth and there were faint markings on them, lines and curves and shapes carved there.

"Sheeta what is this? Did cavemen do this?"

She turned back to face him.

"I think you know already what this is."

They continued on, down and down. The steps ended and the corridor continued. To right and left of them archways opened into the black. Sheeta seemed to know where she was going. She was nodding, counting doorways. She stopped.

"Here."  
"How do you know about this place?"  
"I came here when I was younger. A boy in the village discovered it. He came back from his _pead-lth-u'or _and told us he'd found it."  
"His what?"  
"It's a journey all boys take when they reach a certain age, younger than you. They go away for a year alone, traveling, fending for themselves. When they return they are considered men. One of the boys in the village came back and told us he'd found something amazing. A group of us went with him, he brought us here."

A new thought came into his head.

"You know where we are. How far are we from your home?"  
"Not far, a week, if we travel quickly. But here, I want to show you something."

She led him through a doorway. Inside he could see nothing. The light from his lamp didn't reach the walls or ceiling, it made a circle of yellow brightness beyond which there was a hazy nothing. The floor seemed to be worn stone slabs, it was all they could see.

"Turn out your lamp."

He did so and the blackness was absolute. He had seen black like this often down the mines when his candle had gone out so he wasn't afraid, but it never failed to impress him, how black, how completely black, it was under the earth. Even on the darkest night without a moon and with cloud so that there were no stars, there was still light. Here, if you held your hand two inches from your face you couldn't see it. And silence too, complete quiet. A man could go mad in a place like this.

"_Lirhum_."(1)

Blue light filled the place, gentle, flowing, softly alive. She had said a word that had illuminated the stone, made it glow. Holding it by its cord, she lifted her arm and the blue glow filled the room. He looked up. His mind couldn't grasp what he was seeing. They were in a space so huge it felt like they were outside. A space this big couldn't exist under the earth. The biggest cavern Uncle Pom had shown him would fit into this hall a hundred times over. It wasn't just high but wide and long as well. All he could think of was the huge tree room on Laputa, it was a space like that but instead of a tree, here there was something else.

In Slag Ravine there was a public library. It was in a small brick building at the back of the school room and Mr. Wendle, the school master looked after it. There were not many people in the Ravine who read books, there was little time for idle reading if you were miner or a train driver. But when he had the opportunity Pazu liked to go there. There were a few books on flying, mostly fictional boys adventures and one on flying machines with wonderful pictures in it. The room had shelves around the walls and two rows of bookcase-like shelves down the centre.

The room he was in now reminded him of the Ravine library, but only in spirit. In size it was like comparing a single flower to the forest outside. Shelves were everywhere, vast long rows of them. Higher than a man could reach, _much_ higher, which made him wonder who reached up there. Above him, set out from the walls all around the room was a wide balcony and on that more shelves, and above that another balcony, with yet more. He could see no stairways, no way to reach these upper galleries. You'd have to fly to get there. The whole place sloped like a sinking ship and things seemed to have fallen from the shelves and slid down the slope, to the side of the room away from them. But many of the shelves were still full. Of books. Or things that looked like books.

He stood, his jaw hanging open. He marveled.

"Which is it? The Head or the Heart?_ Lahoromne _or_ Lapendraes_?"  
"I don't know. I don't know if anyone does. I don't even know who else knows this is here. I suppose somebody must, it's not hard to find. And I don't know if this was one of the four palace islands or an ordinary one, but this looks like an important lot of books doesn't it?"  
"Have you looked at any of them?"  
"Yes, when we came before. I couldn't read any of it."  
"Is it dead? Any robots?"  
"Yes, I think it's dead. When we came before we went down one of the other corridors and found a chamber with lots of robots in it, all piled up in heaps. Broken."  
"I wonder where the crystal is?"  
"It's not here, or if it is, it's destroyed."  
"How do you know?"  
"My stone has spells for finding things. In the same way its beam led to Laputa it can be told to look for other crystals. When I was here before, I tried, and it didn't react. The crystal which once made this island fly is dead."  
"How big is this place?"  
"No idea. It might just be this hill, behind the cliff. But it could be huge, it could be the whole forest. I don't know how much of it is buried underground."

They walked along the ends of the rows of shelves. Pazu looked at the shelving and couldn't decide what it was made of. It wasn't timber, which would have rotted away long ago. And it wasn't metal, there was no rust and when he tapped his knuckles against it the sound was wrong. The thing it most reminded him of was pottery, hard and smooth like Okami's best china plates. It didn't seem to have discoloured or worn or rusted or rotted. He was perplexed. They went down between the rows of shelves, the towering walls reaching up above them like two cliffs. They walked for a minute until they came across a sloping pile of things completely blocking the aisle. When he tapped them with his boot they clattered. They were flat, like boards and looked like books but they weren't. He picked one up. It had a clear cover like glass and yet it wasn't glass, that much was obvious. Glass covers would have shattered when they fell from the shelves. He shook the thing and the clear cover hinged open exactly like a book, and also, like a book, it had pages. But these weren't paper. Again, paper would have disintegrated to dust long ago. He turned a page. The material was thin as paper and flexible yet smooth and glossy. He creased the page and it sprung back, the crease vanished. He made a fist and crumpled the page up. On releasing it, it sprung back smooth and perfect. Flipping some pages he came to the writing. He'd seen this before, a cuneiform angular script that had been on the grave on Laputa, all angles, vee-shapes and slanted strokes.

"I don't suppose you can read this?"  
"No, _Paetsu_, and none of the other children could either. We took one home with us but were too afraid to show it to their parents. As I was an orphan they let me keep it in my house where no adults would find it."  
"We need a dictionary I suppose, a translation. But finding one seems impossible in all this."  
"Well, when I said none of us could read them, that was a lie. I found one that I understood."  
"What did it say?"  
"It was a dictionary I think. It had the old writing in and against those words it had _Oistrakh-Auera_ but written in the alphabet of your tongue. That I could read. I hid it _Paetsu_, I didn't want the others to see it."  
"Why?"  
"I said it before, it's best that the past is forgotten, so the same mistakes are not repeated."  
"I can't agree with you."  
"I know. That's another piece of evidence for you being _Phom's_ descendant. You have his spirit in you as well. The spirit of adventure and flying. The spirit of putting aside only what we did wrong and holding onto what was good about the flying peoples. I know where the dictionary is. Come."

He picked up three or four more of the glass volumes at random and stuffed them in his bag. She led him back to the end of the shelves by the doorway. Then, carefully checking they were in line with the doorway she went the other way along the shelf rows. She got to the tenth one and reached down to the bottom shelf on the right hand side, the very first book. She pulled it out and held it up. It was a thick volume. Pazu took it and flipped through its pages. Page after page of cuneiform writing and beside it words in the alphabet he knew but which he didn't understand. He went to the back of the book and there found the layout reversed. His alphabet followed by the cuneiform script. He flipped hurriedly through to a word he knew. He came to the letter _k_ and then _kae_. He stopped. Beside the entry was a mark of two V shapes laying on their sides, points together something like a flattened X. It looked, he thought, like two faces touching, kissing. _Kaesu_, to kiss, written in the cuneiform script of old _Oistrakh-Auera_.

He looked up at her, his heart full of something amazing, amazing possibilities. He looked again up at the room, shelf upon shelf, millions of books. He'd need to invent a flying machine to reach the top shelves, something like a flaptor would do it.

"Thank you. Thank you for trusting me."  
"You saved my life. Maybe with this you can save the future."  
"We need to be on our way Sheeta, before the weather gets worse. But I'll come back here. Some day I'll spend time looking. Come to the cave, set up a camp and stay for a while. I want to be able to read this. Take away the important books. Translate them to my language. And if I can, save the future. From idiots like Muska."

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_23 – 25 March 2007 _

_(1) Lirhum: light._

_For author notes about Chapter Thirty Three, please see my forum (click on my pen name)_


	35. Chapter 34 : Hearth

**Chapter Thirty Four - Hearth **

They returned to the cave. The snow had stopped although it lay on the ground, two, three inches deep. The forest was white and silent and mysterious. Night was coming, the short autumn day was ending. They sat by the fire huddled together for warmth. She cooked for them and then they lay down, not apart this time, not her in her sick bed and he curled up in his jacket, but together on the bed of moss and leaves beside the fire. They shared her poncho and blanket and Sheeta lay on her back and sang for him. He lay beside her watching her and listening. He didn't understand the words, he just listened to the sound. She sang him several songs, the ones she knew best and one of them _he_ knew. It was the one she'd sung that first morning when she had bathed in the stream. He knew it was a sad song but the way she sang it there was a happy, hopeful undercurrent there as well.

She sang it again and this time sang the lines alongside in the tongue he knew.

_Huhn, ny'muhl la daloeh om-e_ - I'm here where the daylight begins  
_La fohr u-la lirhmoth tu puhr sem_ - The fog on the lamplight slowly thins  
_Ah u-la ah la whinnoh_ - Air on the air is the way  
_Imroh la suerte o-fodh ehroth_ - The safety of islands fading away

_Fluh yau skur_ - Fly your sky  
_Myet yau stor_ - Meet your storm  
_Yau he-ayerth al om-e tuh_ - All I want is to be your harbour  
_La lirhum om-e_ - The light in me  
_Hewn gier yau-tal're_ - Will guide you home  
_Yau he-ayerth al om-e tuh_ - All I want is to be your harbour

_Brinnoh au-seth, ust for la_ - Fear is the brightest of signs  
_Silyeth au la bruwynd yau lus neh'mher_ - The shape of the boundary you leave behind  
_e-Shuurn yau-al coertens tau mor_ - So sing all your questions to sleep  
_Ensur la urt-thome au herthme duh_ - The answers are out there in the roaring deep

_Yau brwyneh o-goh tau_ - You've got a journey to make  
_Uth'uru yau huernen tau caesen_ - There's your horizon to chase  
_Uesen gu fuhr aeyond ueh'stunen_ - So go far beyond where we stand  
_Na maerteh dunstuch la_ - No matter the distance  
_Yau-teh huldhe om-e_ - I'm holding your hand

_Fluh yau skur_ - Fly your sky  
_Myet yau stor_ - Meet your storm  
_Yau he-ayerth al om-e tuh_ - All I want is to be your harbour  
_La lirhum om-e_ - The light in me  
_Hewn gier yau-tal're_ - Will guide you home  
_Yau he-ayerth al om-e tuh_ - All I want is to be your harbour

When she finished there was silence, the quiet of the night and the gentle rustling of the wood in the flames. He looked at her face, her eyes, her mouth. He wanted to touch but he lacked the courage. He wanted to ask if she wanted to feel his touch but he was afraid. He wanted to do the thing his mind had dwelled on many times when looking at her but he knew this wasn't the time. When that happened, if it happened, he wanted it to be in the perfect place, and at the perfect time. He had no idea where and when that would be. He wanted it to be now, so much he wanted it to be now. But he feared to take that first step.

"That was beautiful. No wonder it took so long for me to make you well. The angels in heaven wanted you. So you would sing with them. Did you write it?"

She giggled.

"Me? No, no. That's a very old song, hundreds of years old. Hm, it's funny, I've always loved it. My grand-mamma taught it to me. It's a song sung by girls when their boys go away. For their year. Their _pead-lth-u'or. _When they return, they are men. They are allowed to carry a weapon, set up a home," she looked away, "and take a wife."  
"_Yau he-ayerth al om-e tuh. _The words you say in your sleep."  
"Yes. I sang that song for two years. It made me so sad to sing it."  
"You had a boy?"  
"I did, but he was one of the many who go away and never come back. It happens _Paetsu_, the spirits decide who is weak, who is strong and who is so beautiful they take them for themselves. He was beautiful, and he was taken."

Pazu felt awkward. He didn't know there was another boy.

"It doesn't matter, he's gone. But now when I sing this song, I sing it for someone else. For another boy to come home. You know him."  
"_Paetsu Fuhmonhir_."  
"Yes. You. I said the song was old. It was written for _Phom_, the prince who was disowned and sent away. His lover sang it, which is why it is a sad song. I sang it for two years. The story is that she sang it for twenty, and she sang it the day she died. They say her heart couldn't go on, it was broken. But when girls sing this and their lovers return, it is sometimes sung again at the homecoming, and then it's the happiest song you could imagine. If a girl sings it to her lover at the _Furtuen Caemarth_ – the Feast of Homecoming, it becomes a wedding vow. You know, strange as it might seem, it's your song. It was written for you."

She turned her head and looked at him.

"_Paetsu_, you did something wonderful with that spell. You didn't only save my life, but as well as that, you showed me who you are. I thought I knew already, there had been other signs, but being able to draw a spell from the stone is proof."  
"I've been trying to take it all in. I don't think I have yet. There's so much to learn."  
"You will, you're a good student."  
"I just seem to have more and more questions. And keep crashing aircraft. And getting you hurt."  
"No. Not hurting me. Saving me. Again and again, all the time. I feel like you save me every day. You just look at me and I'm saved. You just speak to me and I feel complete. You just touch me. And I feel like I am newborn. _Paetsu_?"

He stared at her. Her hair was everywhere, all around her face. Her eyes... she was too close, was too warm, and much too soft. Something in him was stirring, something he wanted and yet didn't want.

"Sheeta."  
"_Yau ulve om,_" she was whispering now.  
"I'm learning."  
"Yes."  
"I love you too. Even… y_au ulve-dhu om."_

She smiled, he was nearly there, nearly understanding now.

"Almost. Very close. _Yau al-dhu' ulve om_. I love you a lot, or I love you so much. It's how I would say it."  
"_Lucita, yau al-dhu' ulve om_. But I like it when you say it, it sounds like the snow falling."  
"No, _Paetsu_, you are the snow. And I am the soil."

Her voice was soft, the way he loved it, breathy and close and making his heart respond, his body respond. She was so close that when she spoke, no matter how gently, he felt her breath on his chin. When she looked at him her eyes had the fire in them, flickering, dancing. The fire was in her and yet in him. How could that be?

"_Paetsu_, fall on the soil. Fall on me like the snow of winter."  
"Yes."  
"Wash me like the rain of spring."  
"I want to."  
"Burn me like the sun of summer."  
"I don't know h…"  
"Plant your seed in the autumn, it will lie sleeping with the winter. In the spring with the flowers it will bloom. In the summer will come the harvest."  
"I love you…"  
"Plant in me. Harvest me."

He felt a touch, her fingers were on his side, below where his shirt covered him. They moved lower, tracing the bone of his hip to the top of his leg. His flesh burned where she touched it, his heart burned with a sudden fear.

"_Yau al-dhu' ulve om_. Can also mean… I love every part of you. It reads several ways depending who says it, or how it is said."  
"What does it mean when you say it?"  
"All of them. Especially the last. Especially here, this part. I love this part of you. Where you and I are different."

Her fingers were soft, and warm, and gentle. She took hold of that part of him that made him a boy, where he and she were different. Her touch was like nothing that had ever happened before. This part of him had grown like this many times, in the night by accident, in the morning when he woke. But with her fingers there it felt like what she was holding wasn't just a part of him, but all of him, everything he was, was in her hand. When she held him tighter there and moved her hand against his scalding flesh it was as though her hand was on his heart. His heart was in her hand, beating, pulsing. He became a part of her. Like an instrument that she played. As though it was all of him, all that mattered, and his mind hung from her fingers and would go wherever she led.

She let go of him. She put her hands to the bottom of her shirt and lifted it, pulled her arms over her head and drew the shirt away. She threw it aside and let her arms lie raised over her head.

"Take off your shirt."

Fumbling, clumsy, brushing against her, he did so. She had wanted this for so long now, but had resisted. She had resisted because she wanted to know him better and for him to know her. She had wanted to save this until they got home to her farm, when their journey was over and they could throw off that burden of worry. In her home it would be special, her special welcoming. She would be able to secure the blessing of the elders of her community. Then had come this forest and the bullet that had almost and, but for him, would have killed her. And that had shown her the fragility of things, how easily and unexpectedly tragedy could come and take away everything, could destroy them. And she was fearful. And because of her fears she made up her mind to do this now, she wanted this now, right here in this island entryway that had become a cave, a special place where he and she had a past. Here and now, before they faced more journeying, more chances of tragedy. She was worried about making a child, yes that scared her, especially while they were traveling. But she wanted him more, so much more. Her body burned to have him, to feel that which she had so tantalizingly glimpsed during the last weeks.

She looked at him, the undressed shape of him, she began to feel like she was on a slope, the ground was tilting and she was loosing her footing, sliding down, sliding faster so she couldn't stop herself. She stopped trying to fight gravity, trying to cling on to the slope. She did what she'd been wanting to do for days and days. Her mind had been screaming inside herself to do this for a long time. And she had been holding on, clinging on, holding back. Now she let go.

"Now, _kaesu om-e, ulve om-e_."

He was shaking with nerves, vibrating with fear, like a motor running. He lowered his face to hers. She watched him as he came to her, her eyes smiling and encouraging. His mouth brushed against her. As soft as always, as warm and as beautiful as she'd been in her bath, she welcomed him. Her mouth opened and he ventured in. She let him enter, lay open for him and sighed as he explored her. She lifted one hand and lay it on the back of his neck. She pulled him to her and her breathy noises awoke in him some urgent thing that needed to move faster, more deeply, more roughly. She moaned against him and her other hand slid down between them again, returning to hold the thing she loved, the part of him that made her weep with longing and anticipation.

With a gasp he ended the kiss.

"Sheeta, I want to, I want to, but… I don't know how."  
"Hmm… My beautiful _Paetsu_, something else. One last thing I want to tell you," she was breathless and drew in a deep breath to calm herself, her hand that lay between them still held him, "_He-ayerth_, you asked me what _he-ayerth_ means. I wouldn't tell you before. In the song it's 'harbour' because that's a symbol of safety and refuge. _He–ayerth_ like lots of Gondoan words has several meanings. The flying nations didn't have harbours so literally it means hearth or fireplace but it can also be home, a doorway, a safe hiding place. It's also a woman's place, a woman's centre, her hearth. There is a saying that women use to their husbands on their wedding night. _Ur he-ayerth mo_, literally it means rule my hearth, but the real meaning is know my body, or make love to me."  
"Love? As in to love someone?"  
"Yes, love is lots of things, an ache when someone is far away. A warm blanket when they are near. A raging fire when they are against you. These are all different. They are all love. Love me. _Paetsu, ur he-ayerth mo_."  
"Show me how."

And she did, although she herself knew little, she knew her own needs, she knew the things her people's songs and poems told. And the things she had learned from the older girls, the young married women, she knew that. She knew what he had to do, the simple act of it. But she knew more, and it was this _more_ that she wanted to show Pazu. Planting the seed was easy, it might only take five minutes, and she knew that. But one of the young married women had told her that love wasn't like farming, it wasn't a thing you did quickly and with the minimum effort. She had described it as a feast, a great meal. There were several courses, each important and each should be taken slowly, enjoyed as a meal in themselves. Sheeta hadn't understood all of this but some basic part of her had connected to it.

In the cave, with the snow and the night and the coming winter outside, she took what she knew and added it to the instincts of her body. She led him with these things. The great feast of love, first the opening course in which there were kisses, softly on the mouth, inside the mouth, on the eyes and the ears and the neck and the hands. And lower, she told him to kiss her lower and when he did, unsure, clumsy but eager and willing to learn, she discovered the wonder of this part of the meal. When his mouth touched her there, where she was soft, when his wet tongue traced lines across the curving shape of her, it made her cry out and lift her spine from the floor. And when, wanting to see what happened, he even nipped her there with his teeth the spasms that bent her body into a sweet painful curve made him draw back in fear lest he had broken her. But her hand returning to the back of his neck and pulling his face back down to her chest told him he hadn't hurt her.

Her words of "_again_" and "_harder_" surprised him. He returned his lips and tongue and teeth there, to both of those pretty places and watched and listened in wonder as she writhed and spoke her joy with moans and words in her native tongue he didn't know.

She knew that love wasn't just a thing the man gave to the woman, a thing he did to her. Surprising him and herself she pushed him away, rolled him on his back and wishing there was more room under their covering, she kissed him. His mouth, so deeply she wondered if this could be the pinnacle of it, if the pleasure of kissing like this was all she needed. But she let the slope take her faster and further and she kissed down lower, kissed the muscles under his chin and down his neck, low at the side where his neck joined his shoulder his muscles were hard, the simple strength of his body made her feel weak, he was so lovely. Then again, kissing his broad chest made her feel faint with the beauty of it's hard smooth flesh, and lower still where his flat stomach seemed to be made not for mundane functions to do with food but as a playground for her mouth and fingers. As she knelt astride him she could feel the man part of him against her, against her leg, her own stomach, the softness of her chest.

She wanted to enjoy the second part of this meal and knew how to do this to him. But he had no understanding of what he could do for her. He had discovered _kaesu_, he had discovered _ulve_, now she showed him _taeh_, to touch. _Taeh-a'fhell_, the touch of fingers as her friend had called it. The woman served the man with her fingers and he served her, it was a shared thing.

It was new to her, here it was just instinct sending her down the slope, tilting the ground steeper so she moved more restlessly, more urgently, everything gathering speed, a reckless rushing thing. Laying on their sides, she could reach him, and by repeated movements where she held him, draw out the sounds of delight from him. But what he had no inkling of was what he could do to her, where he could touch, and what would happen when he touched there. She lifted one leg and held it bent at the knee, her foot on the ground. Open like this she held his hand and guided his fingers there and he felt the heat, her burning centre, her liquid heart. She showed him where to touch, how to explore her, once again she led him and he followed. He learned and as he moved against her she bit her lip and closed her eyes. Yes, a good student. _Oh, yes_, a very good student. His fingers touched a small part of her and made her shout. She put her mouth to his shoulder and dug her teeth in, to keep from crying out. Afraid, he took his hesitant hand away.

"No _Paetsu_, please. No stopping, not when I shout. Not even when I scream. If I scream or cry it means I'm hurting. But not now, like this. Here it means yes. It means more. _Paetsu_, it means carry on. Now, _Paetsu_, please more. Now."

He was shocked, this wasn't the girl he had come to know, this was someone else, not the angel he loved, more a demon. There was sweat on her lip and rage in her eyes and power in her fingers and an exciting energy in the muscles of her body. Slender and light she might be but as she twisted and turned and groaned and touched him her strength and purpose both frightened him yet drove him on. Was all of this love? Was this what the men in the Red Cow Inn had laughed about? He didn't know why they laughed, this wasn't a thing to laugh at. This was beautiful, frightening yes, but it drew him in with its strong focus, the way she moved and the sounds she made and the way she touched him and the hot feelings she caused in him made him realize how little he knew, and perhaps, and even more surprising, how little the laughing men in the Red Cow knew.

She took his hand and led him back to her. He explored the shape of her, the folds, the depths, the small firm point which made her moan and bite him when he grazed across it with his finger nail. And then she could bear it no more. It was too much, too good, too strong. Now it was time, now she needed more, needed him. Now it would happen.

"_Paetsu_?"  
"Yes?"  
"Please don't worry. The other boy."  
"What about him?"  
"He never knew me. You are the first."

He kissed her.

"Thank you. You are too."

She smiled again, he was so sweet, as if she could not guess.

"I know."

She lay on her back and by gentle words and movements and encouraging hands she showed him. She led him and he followed. She taught him and he learned. She spoke and he listened. She sang and he marveled at her song. He moved over her and puzzled but eager did as she bid. She lifted her legs and made room for him, a wide space in which he lay. It felt strange to him but inside, deep within, a primitive part of him _knew_. He knew what to do, exactly (his memory reminded him, one of those odd moments when memories come back at the least expected times) as Tanner had said he would, he _knew_.

They both guided him, she with one hand holding him and leading, he with one, almost holding her hand. He felt a hot place, a place of wondrous warmth and exquisite wetness and smoothness. Curious, he moved in. It seemed a very small space. It squeezed him tightly and he was afraid of hurting her. She thrashed her head from side to side and cried out. It hurt, she hadn't expected it to hurt. Then the pain quickly passing, she felt something else, something so wonderful she gasped in, sucking in breath trying to believe that anything could feel so good.

"I'm sorry. Is this right? Am I there?"  
"Yes, oh, yes, _Paetsu_ you are there. Welcome, I welcome you… _Paetsu, ur he-ayerth mo_."

She twisted her head back, tilting it until her neck, her throat was exposed. She moaned as he kissed her throat. He stayed still a while, kissing her, then the instinct in him that Tanner said would take over, did so and he began to move. Not knowing why he did so, it just felt right. The thing he must do.

The _Taeh-a'fhell_ part of the feast ended and with a moan of pleasure Sheeta welcomed the next part. The most beautiful part. Pazu, knowing nothing, did everything. Completely ignorant, he was perfect. Lacking all skill and knowledge he gave her all she needed. In his blindness, he could see. He moved back and then forward again, and she gasped. He repeated this, it seemed to be something she liked. He withdrew again, and pushed back, a little harder and drew from her mouth a louder cry.

_if I cry it means yes, it means more_

So he did more, moving again, each time he returned she would make a little noise, a gasp, and if he returned faster she would cry more. If he pushed into her harder he found she moaned even louder. Whatever it was he was doing, it was pleasing her. And if he could please her, he was happy. He held himself above her on his arms, muscles taut and burning and concentrated on only one thing. Pleasing her.

Sheeta was going, leaving. She felt she was drawing away, going on ahead. Always ahead of him, leading him, he following. But now she felt something begin to happen. It was a new thing, a thing she had never before in all her years experienced. She knew nothing about it. The songs and the poems and the married women had never once mentioned this. Specifically _this_. They had spoken of love but nothing specific. And _this_ was specific. It was centred right inside a certain part of her, a place where she burned and received him and opened and sang. There was a place, a place he touched as he moved. Her whole mind seemed to be right _there_. Yes, she could feel him moving inside her, by lifting her legs a little and bending them back she could make that feeling so much _more_. The sensation of him being in her was enough to make her moan and twist her head from side to side. But along with the filling sensation, the sensation of completeness that he caused in her, there was something else, something so hot and hard and desperate and new that her mind began to come adrift and go on ahead. She couldn't grasp how good this was. How good was _perfect_? How good could something be? What happened when a sensation became like perfection, pure and white and tasting of everything that was beautiful?

Seeing him half naked and chopping wood had made her feel a hot need but this feeling was more, so much more. It was so much she didn't know if she could stand it. It went on and on, more and more, building and building until she could no longer measure it, no longer cope. It happened, for the first time in her life it happened to her. Even with his weight on her, her neck bent back, her scalp pressed onto the ground, her hips too, but between head and hips there was nothing, nothing but her arched back and her risen stomach and her aching singing chest and her thrown back arms. And she was no longer flesh and muscle but made up of colours, she became the rainbow, the bright arch between sun and rain, she became the storm, the lightning and the thunder, she became the flower that blossomed in the forest and the bright moons that sailed together across the dark. She became the sunrise and the sunset, the deep lake at dawn and the roaring of tumbling streams. She became the fog rolling over morning's river and the laughter of children. She became the stars dancing on the carpet of the night. She became the high mountains and the restless sea, she became fields of golden corn and the endless blue of the sky. She became the crying of a new born lamb and the scream of the curlew. She became everything – _Lucita_, all of life, life beginning and rolling on - and at the same time nothing - a single instant of time, a drop of rain. She became at that final moment just a scream, just a cry, a pure sound that went on and out and into the night.

And in her came _Lucita_, the earth mother. She came there to the cave. She stood at the entrance on top of the snow, weighing nothing, leaving no trace of her passing and watched, she saw the boy and the girl and smelled living things all around them, even things that had once had life and from where life had now departed. There was the wood of the fire, the plants in the broth, the leaves and mosses under them. A million tiny things in the cool spring water in the bottle, the wool of the blanket, the leather and fleece of their cloak covering. There was the leather string that went around her neck and on it the living stone. _Lucita_ saw three living things in that cave, the sweating boy, the screaming girl and the glowing stone. The stone was not living as the girl and boy were living. It had no beating heart, it did not see or hear or feel or breathe. But it had a spirit, it had a soul and it was alive. And as she stood, dressed in white and beautiful as a maiden, calmly awaiting the boy to bring forth the seed she needed to kiss, she let herself be drawn once again into the pure and beautiful dance that lovers create. She saw the girl ready, the small point of life inside her waiting, ready to receive. And then she saw the boy, felt his mind, cried out with him and the guttural rush of pleasure that for a few seconds made his mind behave as though it were dead, knowing nothing. Unhinged from reason, from the ability to think. She was his cry, she felt the girl open and receive him. Receive her.

_Lucita's_ heart saw all this and saw how beautiful it was. But she also saw it was not yet the time. There was more that she needed these young people to learn. It was not yet their time to create life. That future would come, at the right time for them, when they were ready. Although it was in her power to take the life in his seed, in what the boy had placed inside the girl, and although her body was ready to receive that seed and bear fruit, _Lucita_ saw a greater need, a need for them to spend longer with each other, to learn more, be much more together, be stronger. There was her time of bleeding he had not yet seen. He needed to experience that, to understand more of what the woman in her endured. And, she thought, this boy and this girl deserved other times like these, times of delight and awakening, times of pleasure, times of loving. There should be time for all of that. _Lucita_ wouldn't make the girl barren but she would delay her fruitfulness for a season, perhaps for two so that these young people might enjoy the pleasure of union and learning.

The seed and the egg were not wasted. The energy created in this moment she took, she reached inside them and closed her warm hand about the point of energy and withdrew, she would use that life force to balance, to overcome a darkness elsewhere. _Lucita_ would return, but for now she would leave them and their simple earthy pleasures.

The cave that had briefly contained four lives then the promise of a fifth, a brief fifth inside the girl passed, and there were three life forces left there. One cool and silent and gentle and two others ragged and hot and spent and wet and filled with joy.

He fell onto her, gasping, her back collapsed under his weight and she held him tight, moaning and thanking him, over and over. And now came the last part of the feast. In some ways this was the nicest, this was the time _afterwards_. The time of resting and holding each other and gently touching and simply being against the warm presence of the other. Whimpering, Sheeta stroked her hands over his back. Pazu, gasping, his lungs burning from the effort, resting his weight on his elbows lest he crush her, ran his fingers through her hair and wiped the wet strands from her face. And each of them felt the other, he felt her heat holding him secure, filling him with a comforting protected sense of never wanting to leave her. She felt him in her, deeply resting, filling her and she felt something else, what he had placed inside her, moving within, seeking to make a new life. But not this month, _Lucita_ had decided she would not bear fruit this month. He moved and withdrew and she felt empty and incomplete. Pazu lay beside her. He touched again with wonder, the soft front of her, wondering how beautiful a thing could exist. He lowered his head and kissed her there. She needed no further touches and pulled his head up and kissed his mouth.

And drawing the covering more tightly about them, pressing close and holding each other, and softly kissing, they let sleep come over them and take them away.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

_24 – 28 March 2007 _

There are so many new Gondoan words here that I'm not going to list them - they all have a translation in the story anyway, but I have added a big update to the dictionary in the forum.

Once again, the song lyrics are not mine but belong to Vienna Teng, I can't do more but repeat that she is a singer-songwriter who has been so inspirational to me these last few months. This song "Harbor" is especially beautiful although I have changed some of the words for the Gondoan version.

_For author notes about Chapter Thirty Four, please see my forum (click on my pen name)_


	36. Chapter 35 : Attitude

**Chapter Thirty Five - Attitude  
**  
It took them three days to walk through the forest, and they had been two nights at the inn. Pazu had risked stopping here because they simply had to. They were wet, freezing cold, hungry and exhausted. They had walked hard through the snowy woodland trying to get through it as fast as possible. They had come upon the town in the valley below the wooded hills and despite the risk, Pazu thought it essential that they get warm, dry, clean, rested and fed. He still had some Marinaen money. The innkeeper accepted it although Pazu thought he charged them more for the inconvenience he'd have of visiting the money changer.

"Refugees from the war, eh?"  
"Yes."  
"Don't blame you, terrible business."  
"What is the news on it?"  
"Whole show's ground to a halt from what I can tell. Don't know if you can ever trust the papers though, eh? Marinaer was pretty much finished, then Numenaor sent their army over and attacked from the east and pushed us back, eh? All the way back into Greycastle and that's when the rain and snow pretty much put a stop to it all. Very little flying going on, roads is all mud. I'm hoping the politicians will talk over winter and get to an understandin', don't you think, eh?"  
"I hope so. It's horrible in Marinaer."  
"Where you from?"  
"Near Stoak, in the north east."

Once again, being a fugitive and being in a war made lying so easy. Lying and stealing for Pazu had become almost essential to their survival. That didn't mean he had to like doing it.

"Yes, nasty business and no mistake. Bad for trade too, lots of empty rooms, eh?"

They had taken a room upstairs at the back of the inn overlooking the stable yard and the first thing Pazu asked was did the inn keeper have a bath house. He did, a room on the ground floor where he had a boiler that was always kept full in winter. More of Pazu's precious money changed hands, but this was an expense worth every penny. The bath house was a brick building attached to the rear of the inn, it had a fireplace with a wood store and Pazu soon got a roaring fire going.

Pazu was filled with a pleasant sense of anticipation. He wanted to do again the wonderful thing they had done in the cave. It had been exciting and he knew she had enjoyed it so he felt sure she would want to be with him again. The two nights in the forest had been terrible. They had found whatever shelter they could, in the lee of trees or in hollows and he'd cut off fir tree branches and made up layers of these both under them and around them to trap in the warm air from their bodies. It had been bitterly cold, had snowed hard this last three days, and they'd slept fully dressed, huddled together in the poncho in front of the biggest fire he could light. He'd used up the last of their chemical tablets. There had been no opportunity for anything, any kind of contact, they hadn't even cuddled, he'd just put his arms round her trying to give her as much of his body's heat as he could. But now, in this cozy place, in this hot bath, surely she would want to have him touch her?

"Do you want… um, do you want me to bathe you?"  
"No."  
"Oh. Wash your hair?"  
"Not tonight Pazu, I'm just tired."  
"Oh, alright. I'll, er, I'll wait and bath second."

She didn't answer. He let himself out of the room. He went upstairs and sat on the bed, wondering what was going on. He must have done something wrong, he'd been racking his brains all day trying to think what but nothing came to him. He sat there an hour flicking through the Oistrakh-Auera dictionary but not really reading any of it when she came up.

"Please excuse me, I'm so tired, I'd like to go to bed."  
"Oh, yes, sure. Ah, I'll go down and bath. I'll be back soon."

Again, no answer.

He must have definitely said the wrong thing somewhere.

Or done it.

He sat in the wonderful hot water, feeling the aches and pains and stresses float off him, all his worries and cares soaking away. Except one. Sheeta, or rather Sheeta's attitude. She was acting funny and he knew it must be his fault but he couldn't see what it was. She had started acting funny yesterday. They had been walking in the snow downhill through the woods and she'd slipped and fallen down. As he did, as was quite normal, he went to help her up but she just shrugged him off and grumpily got up on her own.

"Don't touch me, I can do it myself," she'd snapped at him.

She'd even said something he hadn't caught, a curse in her own language he assumed. And she'd been walking funny as well, she walked with her arms folded tightly across her front as though annoyed. Without using the arms to balance in the soft snow it was no wonder she'd fallen.

"Walk with your hands out, you won't slip over."  
"Mind your own business, I'll walk how I want."

And she'd carried on. And a half hour later she'd fallen again. This time, unsure, Pazu had held back, standing near to see what she would do. She rolled onto her knees and went to rise when she slipped and went down again on her face.

"Don't just stand there stupid! Help me!"

He'd done so, and when she was up he brushed the snow from her legs.

"Leave it! I can do it!"  
"Just helping."  
"I'm fine."

She sounded anything but fine, she sounded angry. Without a word of thanks or even an apology she went on ahead.

_wrong if I help her up and wrong if I leave her down. what have I done to deserve this?_

They walked in silence for nearly two hours. He could see her being grumpy, see the way she walked and she never once took her folded arms from her chest, she looked defensive and fed up. He kept away from her, kept silent. That evening he lit a fire and melted snow into hot water, it was all they had, the tea had run out in the cave. But hot water was good to keep their core temperatures up. She had sat, hunched up in a small bundle by the fire, chin on her knees, doing nothing. He offered her a mug of water and she looked up and moved her hand suddenly and knocked the tin mug out of his hand, the water spilled on the snow, hissing.

"Oh, for heaven's sake! You stupid idiot! Can't you do anything right?"

She got up and stomped away, standing at a distance and staring at nothing.

"Sheeta! I'm sorry. Here, have mine."  
"Don't want it."  
"No, you need it. Keep you warm."  
"How can it keep me warm? I'm damn well frozen!"  
"All right, _make_ you warm, then."  
"Don't want it."  
"Don't be silly."  
"You have it."

And she'd walked off into the woods black with night and white with falling snow.

"Don't go far."

No reply. Today had been a little better but she'd still worn her arms over her chest like they were sewn there and conversation had been minimal. When they got near the town he had hidden the rifle. Taking any firearm into a town was a risk but a military issue rifle was asking for certain trouble. He had a lot more bullets for it than he had for the revolver so not wanting to throw it away he found a dead tree bole, wrapped the gun and ammunition belt up in the blanket and stuffed it in. He planned to retrieve it when they left the town. During this process which had taken less than five minutes she had stomped up and down, muttering and complaining she was cold.

He sat in the bath.

_yes_, _something was definitely wrong_

He opened the bedroom door quietly. The room was dark, she was a small bump in the middle of the big bed. He quietly slipped his things off

_laundry day tomorrow  
_  
and got into bed. As he moved he touched her back.

"What are you doing?"  
"Getting in bed."  
"You're freezing."  
"I can't be, I just had a hot bath."  
"And you woke me up."  
"Sorry."

_what the hell is the matter with you?_

He lay down. An invisible barrier between them.

"Can I hold you?"

Silence.

"Sheeta? Do you want a cuddle?"  
"Just get close to me and keep still, I'm trying to sleep."

He moved up to her, his front pressed to her back. He was naked, she had her nightshirt on. She lay curled up in a ball, he brought his knees up below her bottom. All he wanted to do was give her as much of his body heat as he could, but she muttered about _keep still_. He put an arm around her waist and moved it up, he only wanted to comfort her, to hold her where she was soft. He thought she might like that but she pushed his hand down.

"Pazu, _don't_. Just put your arm down there and go to sleep."

She had called him Pazu and not _Paetsu_. She hardly ever did that now. Except when she was angry with him it seemed. Confused and unhappy, he listened to her gentle breathing for a long time before sleep came for him.

_- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -_

_26 – 28 March 2007 _

_For author notes about Chapter Thirty Five, please see my forum (click on my pen name)_


	37. Chapter 36 : Bleeding

**Chapter Thirty Six - Bleeding  
**  
Weak winter daylight apologized at the window.

The bed was empty, her side was not even warm. He got up, threw on clothes and went down to the latrine across the yard. He washed at the water pump and came in. In the inn the smell of fried food reached him and his mouth began to water, they'd not eaten for two days and had drunk only hot water. He made a quick decision that if they were going to spend their precious money then spending it on bacon and eggs was probably an acceptable use of it. He went back to their room but wherever she was, she wasn't back yet. He looked around, all their clothes were gone, she had taken the laundry. He glanced out the window and saw her, she was in the back yard. People were clattering about, preparing for journeys, saddling up horses. Two men on horseback, splashed with mud, were with her, talking. She was wearing the green dress again, which seemed odd but then Pazu realized it was probably the only clean thing she had with her. He watched, a small twisting worry curling in his stomach as one of the men dismounted, walked up to her and hugged her. That was enough, he went downstairs.

"Where have you been?" the man asked.  
"Traveling, to Numenaor."  
"Numenaor? Why? Everyone has been so worried. Search parties have gone out for you."  
"Because of the stone. The stone wanted someone and took me with it. I found them, we are coming home. I'm sorry you have been troubled."  
"That is good news. You look well, has it been a hard journey?"  
"No. It has been good, my traveling companion has taken good care of me."  
"We must meet him. Or is it a female?"  
"No, a him," she smiled at Shuna, "I think he is someone you will want to meet."

Sheeta brushed her hand through her fringe, her hair really was getting out of control, it needed cutting. Shuna and Keya saw the mark.

"Oh, our sincere apologies, we didn't know you were bleeding."

Shuna bowed, his palms pressed together, a posture of submission. Keya, still mounted, bowed from the saddle.

"Don't worry, it's nothing, I don't mind. Where are you traveling?"  
"We are just here to buy supplies and then leaving tomorrow, home."

Keya, the younger of the two men, leaned forward from the saddle,

"Ride with us, we have two pack yaoko(1) and you and your companion can share one saddle."  
"That is very kind of you. I will ask him… Oh, _Paetsu!_"

The two strangers shared a look, a look that said "_Him? Here?_"

Pazu came into the yard. He wore yesterday's filthy shirt, his old blue engineers breeches, stiff with dirt, he was barefoot.

"Sheeta, who is this?"  
"_Paetsu!_ This is Shuna and Keya, two men from my village, they are here buying winter supplies and they are going home tomorrow. Can we travel with them?"

Sheeta had a basket under one arm, their clean laundry, with her other hand she kept rubbing her stomach as though she had a tummy ache. Pazu looked at the two men. Their clothing made them look like animals, they wore leather skull caps that had long ear flaps and were lined with fur, and their coats were of shaggy animal pelts giving them a bulky, comical appearance. They didn't wear breeches but tight leggings made of long grey cloth strips wound round and round their legs and a kind of animal hide skirt down to the knee. Soft fur lined boots and a bow across the shoulder completed the outfit. They both wore bushy beards and moustaches of dark red-brown hair, similar in colour to Sheeta's. Pazu thought they looked like a cross between trappers and beggars. They smelled odd too, of lanolin and animals. He eyed them warily and moved to stand beside Sheeta, his shoulder a little in front of her. This protective gesture wasn't lost on the bigger man, he nodded once to Pazu and took a step back from her.

"Shuna, Keya, let me introduce you to _Paetsu_, he is from the far south, in Numenaor. He is coming home. Finally."

Pazu looked at her, she had a smile in her voice. A little different from yesterday then. Keya dismounted and then the strangest thing happened. Both men stood in front of Pazu and went down on one knee in the mud of the yard. They discarded their bows from their backs and reaching under their fleeces drew out, and placed on the ground, long knives. They brought their hands together as though in prayer and bowed their heads. The older man looked up.

"_Paztsu, Paztsu Fuhmonhir_, we welcome you, it is a great honour to finally meet you, this day has been talked of for far too long, and it is with humility that we offer you one of our horses so that we may accompany you to Bruaendell.(2) It would be an honour if you would journey with us."

On their faces were expressions of wonder and astonishment.

"Uh, please, please, get up. Thank you. You're welcome. When are you leaving?"  
"We planned to return tomorrow but we will change our arrangements to suit you, if you wish."  
"Uh, yes. But let me discuss this with Sheeta please."

The two rose and put away their weapons.

"Of course, we understand. _Paztsu_ we have been traveling all night, we shall eat and rest, would you care to eat with us?"  
"I was going to have breakfast in the inn."  
"In that case we will not trouble you…"  
"No," Sheeta interrupted, "we would love to take food with you, please, wherever you are camped, we will eat with you."  
"Thank you, you honour us. Our _he-ayerth_ is in the field behind the inn. Kindly allow us half an hour to prepare."  
"Half an hour, then. Thank you."

Sheeta took Pazu's hand and led him away.

--I--  
---o-o-oOo-o-o---  
I I

"Alright, what's going on?"

They were back in their room.

"This is a great opportunity. Today, you really start to learn."  
"I just said I didn't want to eat with them, didn't you hear me?"  
"And I just gave you a lesson in good manners. Our society is based around the community, it's very strong. We welcome travelers into our homes and when we do it is an insult if they refuse, it's like you saying the person inviting you isn't good enough for you. When someone invites you to dine with them, you always say yes, even if you've just eaten. You don't have to eat much, a mouthful or two is enough. It's the act of accepting the offer that is important. It's one of our main customs."  
"Alright, I get that. Do they know me?"  
"They know _Paetsu Fuhmonhir_, many Gondoans believe he will one day return. What I told you in the cave, it is a legend. Some of us don't want the prince back, but some do. The old fears hold many of us back, while others want to embrace the spirit that _Paetsu Fuhmonhir_ represents. Embracing the man is part of that."

Pazu sat on the bed, his head spinning.

"I never knew it was coming to this? I mean, I can accept what you said about my ancestors but I didn't know I was going to be welcomed home like… like a prince."  
"Why shouldn't you be? You are one."  
"The people who don't want me back. What will they do?"  
"To begin with, watch you carefully I expect, to see what you do and how those who welcome you home react."  
"Well, this is going to be interesting."  
"Yes, I'm looking forward to it. And _Paetsu_?"  
"Hm?"  
"Don't worry, you're not alone. I'm with you."  
"Thanks, but I'm still concerned. People's expectations…"  
"Oh."  
"What?"

She put her hand to her gut again. Now she pressed both hands there, grimacing with discomfort. Then Pazu saw it, a trickle of blood on her leg. It ran down the inside of her calf to her ankle and onto the floor. He noticed for the first time she was barefoot.

"You're bleeding! You're hurt!"

_the spell. the spell hasn't worked properly. she's still ill, something has gone wrong with my spell, I didn't do it properly!_

"No I'm not. I'm not injured."  
"Don't be silly, there's blood running down your leg."  
"It's just me bleeding, that's all."  
"What do you mean? _Just you bleeding_? People don't _just bleed_ unless they've been cut."  
"Girls do you idiot!"  
"What?"

What she did next completely shocked him. She put her arms behind her neck, undid the catch at the top of her dress and lifted it over her head, dropping it on the bed. Underneath she wore nothing at all. Pazu looked away.

"And you can stop that nonsense right now. Look at me. Don't you like me?"  
"Don't say that. You know I do. You know I more than like you. But it's hard to get used to the way you behave."  
"I've told you, don't be ashamed or embarrassed."  
"I know, but I'm not a steam engine, Sheeta, I can't shut the pressure off by just turning a valve."  
"I'm sorry, well, I suppose the more I do it, the more you'll get used to it."  
"Is everyone in Gondoa like you? About this?"  
"Nearly everyone, we're just more comfortable about it. I mean we don't go around with nothing on, it's far too cold for that, but with our beliefs in nature and the beauty of living things many people are just not ashamed of their bodies, or other people's."  
"Well, its so different to what I'm used to. Please don't have a go at me for not being comfortable about it straight away."  
"You seem different to me too. Your shyness, your habits."  
"Well, about the beauty of living things, I could get used to it."

He was looking at her, she smiled back at him.

"I _didn't_ mean like that. That is not the expression you should have on your face."  
"Can't help it. I'm not a steam engine…"  
"…you can turn the valve off. I know."

He looked at her legs, down the inside of both of them were long smears of blood.

"But, you're not well – look at you."  
"Actually, I am perfectly well, completely healthy."  
"How can you be? You must have a bad cut."  
"How does your village treat women then?"  
"How do you mean?"  
"When they bleed?"  
"I don't understand."  
"Every month. Their cycle, they bleed."  
"They do?"  
"Don't you know?"  
"No."  
"You don't know about a woman's cycle?"  
"No, what is it?"  
"Oh, my. Oh, _wow_."

She stood, dripping blood and staring at him, complete surprise on her face.

"Don't you know _anything?_"  
"Yes, thank you, I do. Do you know how to drive a steam engine? Or build an aircraft?"  
"Can you milk a cow, ride a horse?"  
"What's your point?"  
"We each have skills, _Paetsu_, things we have learned. What I'm talking about is life. The way a woman is, just… well, I just can't believe you don't know about it."  
"Well, I don't. My mother died when I was eight. Since then I've worked with men, known only men. Coarse ignorant miners if you like. The girls I tried to talk to didn't seem to be interested in talking back. How _would_ I know about them? You tell me. You go ahead, I'll follow."  
"Wait, this is getting messy. Let me do this first. Pass me my bag, the cloths in it."

She got a small leather bucket out from under the bed, reached between her legs and pulled out a dripping wet bloody cloth. There was a lot of blood, Pazu was shocked, how could this be normal? It must really hurt. She disposed of it in the bucket and then filling a bowl with water from a jug she washed herself, her legs and in _there_ where he had been that night in the cave. She was completely at ease in front of him.

"You obviously don't mind me watching."  
"No, not one bit. Should I?"  
"I don't know, this is all new to me. But if I was injured in a place like that I'd want to keep it private."

She wrung out the cloth, freshened it with clean water and carried on wiping.

"First of all, I'm _not_ injured. You just need to completely forget about thinking like that. This blood is not coming from a wound, it's coming out of me because I'm healthy. Normal. That's the first thing. Second, I don't mind you seeing this because where I live women who bleed are held in awe, they are the first in society, very important. They take precedence over men and young girls. The only people more important are those with growing bellies, carrying children."  
"Young girls don't do this?"  
"No, girls start doing this when they are about ten years old, maybe not until fourteen for some," she paused, looking at him, gave him a long serious gaze, "This, _Paetsu_, is beautiful."  
"It is?"  
"Don't you think it is?"  
"No, it just looks painful."  
"This, _Paetsu_ is a sign that _Lucita _is with me, watching over me, guiding me, close by."

Sheeta finished washing and took the bundle of cloths from Pazu. She selected one, rolled it up into a cigar shape and squatting down, knees apart pushed it up against, into herself. She grimaced a little, pressed it home and stood up.

"There, all done. That will hold the blood for another few hours."

She washed her hands and picked up the dress.

"Wait. Don't."

She stood, arms by her side, dress in one hand. He looked. He loved to look. He took a step forwards and put his hands on her waist. He came close and she closed her eyes. He kissed her, holding his mouth pressed to hers for just a little longer than was necessary. He moved back. Calmly, they looked at one another for a moment.

"Thank you. You're lovely."

She lifted her arms and pulled the dress over her head. He watched the shape of her changing as she moved. Sheeta sat on the bed.

"Now then, come here."

She patted next to her and he sat there.

"When a girl reaches a certain age her body changes. She grows breasts, her hips change shape, lots of things change in her insides, all sorts of things happen that turn her from a girl into a woman. The most important thing is, she is able to make babies, to bear children. _Paetsu_ most of the body you see before you is like this so that it can bear children. My shape, my hips, the way my legs and arms are shaped is due to that, my chest, I'm a walking baby factory. Women are. They can do anything a man can do, _and more_. The child bearing aspect of a woman is beauty at work, creation in front of your eyes, it's _Lucita_ at work in me, turning me from a child into a person who can herself create life.

"Every month, eight times a year, once every forty five days, my body, inside my tummy, makes an egg."(3)

Pazu still thought about chickens.

"It moves around inside me from the place it's made to a place it stays for a while, about three weeks. When it's there, about… hm… here," she took his hand and put it against her stomach, low down, "I am fertile. If a boy lays his seed inside me, there is a good chance his seed will reach the egg and then the egg will grow into a baby inside me. The baby takes six months to grow, three quarters of a year. Three seasons. You've seen women big with babies haven't you?"  
"Yes. Um, Sheeta?"  
"Hm."  
"A boy's seed. How does that get in? Is it what we…?"

She turned to him, placed the palms of her hands either side of his face, and kissed him.

"I love you so much, and do you know why? Not only because of the wonderful things you have done for me, not because you saved my life, _more than once_, not only because you make me laugh and because you're a beautiful friend, and not only because you look like heaven walking, but because you are so gorgeously innocent. You know nothing about so much. And yet you still get by; you are brave, clever, resourceful, willing and you turn my insides to water. But it's your innocence I love the most. _Paetsu Fuhmonhir, yau al-dhu' ulve om_."

He said nothing but drew her to him and hugged her. For a while they rested in each other's hearts.

"To answer your question, yes. What you did in the cave was lay your seed in me."  
"Are you going to make a baby then?"  
"No, not this time, _Lucita_ chose to not let it happen. This bleeding is caused because after about three weeks, if the egg isn't fertilized, my body gets rid of it along with the lining of the tube it lives in which contains nourishment for the baby to feed on when it gets made. So once a month, for a few days I bleed, blood and some dark tissue comes out and the egg is in that, it's very tiny, you wouldn't see it. Then, for about three weeks I can't conceive. I think when we were in the cave my body was so close to getting rid of this egg that it wasn't able to make it into a baby."

Pazu sat and thought about that. A baby of his, and hers. She would be its mother and he would be a father. It might have been a beautiful little girl, or it might have been a boy and would have grown up to run and jump and ride on his shoulders and build flying machines. It was a strange sensation to think that a chance thing like the time of the month they lay together would decide if life happened or not. It felt a little sad to him.

"You said you bleed for _several days_?"  
"Yes, usually three or four, but occasionally longer."

He shook his head, more than anything he was impressed. How did she simply put up with it?

"Wow, how do you cope?"  
"Like this. Cloths to hold the blood, washing often. But if it's hot weather I just wear a loose dress, go barefoot outdoors and let it flow. I'm proud of it. All women in Gondoa are."

Pazu was stunned. How could a person walk around for four days, just bleeding?

"In Gondoa, _Paetsu_, women who are at the bleeding part of their cycle are really important and honoured above all others. They bear the outward sign of Lucita's life force, so that makes them special."  
"I'm sure I'll get used to it one day. Anyway, my stomach's rumbling, come on, let's go and eat."  
"Wait."

She wiped her forehead with the damp cloth, put a finger into the leather bucket and dipping it in her own blood she put a dot of it on her forehead. She brushed her hair back, and held it with her hair band, making sure the mark showed.

"Now I bear the mark. I bear it with pride. It's easy for me. I just have to cope with being special four days a month. What's it like for you, putting up with it all the time?"  
"When you're around, it's easy. I just be like you."

She smiled at him, all he could do was smile back.

"Oh, and there's one other thing. I owe you an apology. I'm sorry."  
"Oh?"  
"The last two days I was horrible to you. I'm really sorry. Part of my body doing what it does makes me really short tempered and grumpy and well, not very nice to be near. I get bad pains in my stomach, and in other places. Especially here," (she put both hands to her chest, covering herself), "these can really hurt, especially the ends, they get sore and sensitive, particularly if I'm cold. It's horrible and every time it happens I get very cross about it all."

Pazu looked relieved.

"I thought it was something I'd done and you were annoyed with me. I was trying to think what it was."  
"Oh, _Paetsu_, I'm so sorry. I'll be extra nice to you now. It's my fault, I should be aware of it starting and tell you but I just didn't think and once I get wrapped up in my grumpy mood I can't break out of it, it just has to work itself off."  
"Next time, I'll know."

_- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -_

_26 – 30 March 2007 _

_(1) Yaoko, the Gondoan mountain ox.  
(2) Bruaendell is the name of Sheeta's village. There are numerous villages and towns in Gondoa, although no large cities.  
(3) Because I gave this world two moons, the female cycle is not 28 days as on Earth, but 45 days, the length of the combined lunar month in this world, that is, from conjunction to conjunction of Tahro and Ptamos, (the two moons being together in the sky). So this planet has 360 days in a year made up of eight 45 month days. The female cycle on this planet is still matched to the lunar cycle, so women ovulate every 45 days, being fertile for approximately half that period. The week is still seven days of 24 hours. Because I love women so much, in my universe I cut them some slack: they endure PMT and period pains only eight times a year, instead of twelve and they have a far longer infertile window in their cycle when they can have fun without the worry of pregnancy : )_

_The downside is that with a 45 day cycle, when women menstruate the blood flow and cramps will be heavier. _

For author notes about Chapter Thirty Six, please see my forum (click on my pen name)


	38. Chapter 37 : Laundry

**Chapter Thirty Seven - Laundry  
**  
It had started snowing again. It lay six inches deep on the ground now except where the horse traffic churned the roads and yards to mud. Pazu realized he'd not yet seen a single steam or motor vehicle in this town. He supposed it was quite a small place and well inland away from the busy ports and mines. He found the presence of animal traffic strangely peaceful, the Ravine was all about steam and machinery and roaring fires and shouting, sweating men and he thought he would miss that, but here the combination of horses and carts, woodland, winter fields and narrow muddy roads felt harmonious.

Behind the inn was a small paddock where drovers would keep their sheep, geese or cattle while walking them to market. At this time of year it was empty. In one corner of it was a strange construction. It was a type of tent, large and of oval shape – two long sides and curved ends. It had a steeply pitched roof with a central point. A number of roof poles met here, passing through a hole out of which the smoke from a fire curled. The walls were sloped inwards and made up of what looked like carpets hung between more poles. The predominant colouring of the patterned carpets was a russet, autumnal colour, the colour of sandstone soil. Outside on the snow the men's saddles were stood and two small wooden stools were placed either side of a wooden chest. Behind the saddles a frame was against the tent, on here with a canvas covering to keep the snow off, hung their bows and swords.

"Watch what I do, do as I do. I'll do the talking. You're lucky. I'm the socially superior person today, because of my bleeding. So listen and learn. When they offer you food don't eat until you see me eat. Before we eat there will be prayers. If I get up you must do too, don't sit until I do. And when we finish eating, you say "_schoma taemo yau om-e" _which means 'my stomach thanks you'."

He chuckled, things seemed both complicated and funny with these people.

"Is the owner of the threshold within?" she called

Shuna appeared from behind a red carpet.

"Visitors, you are welcome over my threshold, enter."

He bowed and made a sweeping gesture with his right hand. At the carpet flap Sheeta kicked off her shoes, Pazu struggled to unlace his boots but Shuna and Sheeta waited patiently for him. Inside, the carpet-tent was far bigger than it looked from the outside. The two curved ends contained bedding and an internal hanging carpet was folded back which at night when dropped down would give the sleeper some privacy. At the rear of the tent were piled up various bags of equipment and in the centre the main space had a fire built on a raised metalwork hearth. The floor was of rolled coarse matting with softer rugs scattered on top. Pazu's first impression was of space, his second of warmth and his third of a wonderful, a most amazing smell.

Keya was by the fire, cooking. He stood as they entered. Shuna made a small bow to Sheeta with palms together and she returned the gesture, this ritual was repeated between her and Keya and then the Pazu-Shuna and Pazu-Keya pairs followed. A thought made Pazu smile.

_at a big meeting just coming in the door must take hours_

Shuna invited Sheeta to sit. He provided her with a red cushion and as she sank down cross legged Pazu noticed that she lifted her skirt so that she didn't sit on it but it pooled around her in a circle. Pazu sat and Shuna invited Sheeta to pray. She bowed her head and held her palms open on her lap. It struck Pazu that it was the same posture Tanner used. He watched Sheeta, a look of wonderful peace came over her face.

"Mother Lucita, for the fruitfulness of your womb we thank you. From the seed in your soil comes our food. We thank you. Of the richness of your harvest we eat. For the gift of friends we are grateful. _Maehome_."(1)

"_Maehome_," both Shuna and Keya solemnly intoned.

Pazu was still watching her. How beautiful she was when she was close to the spirit for whom she was named. Keya looked at Pazu and saw him so much under Sheeta's spell. And he wondered what that might mean for their future.

Pazu had to admit that the meal was astonishing, he hadn't tasted anything quite like it. If this was breakfast served while traveling he wondered what a dinner served at a house would be like. There were small savory dumplings to start with that seemed to be a mixture of potato, yellow corn and herbs. These were boiled, painted with an ochre oil then flash grilled on an iron skillet to crisp their outsides. They were popped in the mouth in a single bite. The outer coating was crispy, the inside smooth and piping hot. Next he was given a simple wooden bowl the size of a soup bowl and in the bottom of this Keya spooned a yellowish crumbly mixture, not wet and yet not dry. This turned out to be a kind of mashed up pulse with a colouring from the _Konsha_ spice which provided a slightly hot sweet flavour. Keya called it _Bomao_, and it was their staple starch and more common than potatoes. On top of the _Bomao_ Keya poured a clear orange liquid which had the consistency of honey. In it Pazu could see small vegetables such as peas and beans and things that looked like chopped up carrots. Finally from the iron skillet he was offered two or three small patties of meat, minced up, patted into small coin shapes and then grilled. Sheeta declined these and copying her he did too but she said he should try them, she only refused because they were Yaoko meat.

They ate. The thing that struck Pazu was how spicy the meal was. It left a hot sensation in his mouth and throat. Not unpleasantly hot but very warming. He later found out to his distress that these were mild spices and meals could be served much hotter. There was no fork or spoon offered him but they spooned up the meal with fingers of hard bread sliced from a large flat disc of a loaf called _Poto_.

The other aspect of the meal that struck him was that it took a long time. This was because they talked. A lot. About all sorts of things. At the Ravine and even with Tanner and Morwen, meals tended to be eaten quickly, with little conversation. At the Ravine the men would stuff their faces then go out to the tavern and spend hours talking and drinking beer. Here, eating seemed to be the social centre of the day and it was mid-morning before breakfast was over. Tanner would have had a fit, half his work day was gone by the time they finished here.

The conversation flowed and swooped around, touching on a dozen subjects. Sheeta asked about the village and things in Gondoa generally, the harvest was talked about and they learned that several people had taken in Sheeta's crops and looked after her animals and house. Apparently the village had been very worried about her disappearance. Pairs of riders had gone out to several places searching for her, even across Restormel to the border with Marinaer where they had been turned back by the army. They had looked in all the ports and airfields. Sheeta showed her gratitude. There had been two births in the village and a man had returned from his year away. The harvest had been good, it had been a good summer.

Pazu sat, Pazu listened, Pazu learned.

They discussed the war, but little could be said about it, there seemed to be nothing of substance coming out of Marinaer, many different rumours had been heard. Pazu sat silently throughout all this, soaking up the news and watching the two men and Sheeta interact, watching the body language. What became quickly obvious was that despite her being younger than the youngest of the two men by several years, she was clearly the senior person present. The two men didn't fawn over her, there was nothing obsequious in their behaviour but they were polite and it was in their language that they willingly took the submissive position, in small gestures, in letting her lead the conversation. He didn't know if this was because she was the guest, a woman who was bleeding, or a princess. Somehow he doubted the latter; if she came from an ordinary farming family it appeared she had little social status in this community because of her bloodline.

What the two men pointedly avoided discussing was him. They asked him no questions and their talk with Sheeta about her travels centred on her welfare rather than the reason. Pazu found this odd, he could sense a whole important subject here that was being avoided. He wanted to talk about Muska's kidnapping of her but something told him to keep silent. The meal finished with tea which was served very sweet and with mint leaves infused in it. The sweetness was cloying and almost made him gag but the mint infusion breathed through the nose cleared his sinuses and filled his lungs with a fresh washed sensation. As they left the tent he felt light headed, the day seemed very bright outside and the inn across the paddock seemed to sway gently from side to side as though floating a little above the ground. Or was it him, was he floating?

"_Schoma taemo yau om," _they both left their thanks at the carpet flap entryway.

The two Gondoans said they would sleep for the rest of the morning then buy supplies. The offer to return for an evening meal was extended and Pazu spoke for the first time since making his greeting.

"We would like to eat with you. Thank you for inviting us."  
"An hour after sunset then, we will look forward to it."

As they went back across the field, Sheeta slipped an arm through his, and walked close, almost clinging. Pazu could feel the two men watching and they would know the status of their relationship from this gesture. Why that bothered him he didn't know, but it did. He was an intruder here, pressing against a society he didn't know. Would he be welcome? Why hadn't they talked to him? Why did he feel like he was floating above the ground?

--I--  
---o-o-oOo-o-o---  
I I

"Why didn't we talk about me?"  
"I avoided the whole subject. That could have become complicated. I don't think they would have wanted to know much about the Ravine, so talking about you would have led quickly to talking about us and our journey. Muska, Tepis, Goliath and Laputa are subjects we should avoid, don't you think? And I'm not going to tell lies to these people, my own villagers."

He silently agreed with her. He had no past, none at all and there was nothing about himself to tell except mining and steam engines. Mentioning a father who had once seen and photographed Laputa and his own flying machine seemed to lead straight down the path Sheeta had suggested was taboo.

"And _Paetsu_, I knew they wanted to know about you. You can't pick up on the etiquette but Keya particularly was interested in you. If I spoke to him, before he replied he would look at you. Didn't you notice?"  
"Yes, I did. He looked at me quite a lot. I felt like he was examining me."  
"His look was a signal to me that rather than answer my question, he wanted to talk about you. I ignored his request and he got the message. Nothing to worry about, I think he might just be curious. But tonight we should avoid talking about you as well. If they ask you just be non-committal and try to steer the conversation back to them and their village and way of life. That way you'll learn more as well."

He watched her stirring the big wooden wash barrel, their second lot of laundry turning slowly around in the steaming soapy water. He sat down and put his head in his hands. His head still felt strange and floaty an hour after walking out of Shuna's tent. He looked up at her and now there were two Sheeta's stirring two laundry barrels.

"Urh, what is wrong with me?"  
"_Timsu_, I expect. Did the tea taste of mint to you? Do you feel funny? Head not attached to the rest of you?"  
"Hmmm, very odd. Nice but just… odd. I'm walking and the ground is six inches below my feet. Mint, yes. What is it?"  
"A plant. It grows high in the mountains just above the tree line. It has pretty little yellow flowers. We use its leaves a lot in herbal remedies, in tea, medicines, to help heal wounds and in the _Telle_."  
"Oh, no, more words. What's the _Telle_?"

She smiled at him mischievously, and kept stirring her witches brew.

"I expect you'll find out tonight, I doubt they will prepare an evening meal and not serve the _Telle_, especially to you. They'll know you've never had it before so be careful. I'd suggest you don't eat heavily just in case it doesn't agree with you."  
"That sounds bad. What is it?"  
"It comes after the meal, but don't worry, I'll be right with you and afterwards you'll see how nice the effects are."

Again another secret smile.

"Why won't you tell me? Is it like _Timsu _leaves? Will it make my head feel funny again?"  
"That would spoil the surprise. I think you'll like it. Oh, and have we much money left?"  
"Yes, some, a gold coin and two silver."  
"Enough for another bath?"  
"Yes, plenty."  
"We should both bath before we go to eat."  
"I bathed last night. What is this?"  
"Don't you want to be clean?"  
"I am clean!"  
"No you're not, you've got today's dirt on you."  
"I don't get it, we went a week without bathing when we were traveling."  
"And it was horrible. Now you're a Gondoan you bath like we do, as often as you can."  
"I'm not a Gondoan!"  
"I don't know any Gondoan princes who aren't Gondoans do you?"  
"Yes. Me."  
"You're missing the point. You can't be one and not the other."  
"You're just playing with words."  
"You're not facing the facts."

He looked carefully at her, trying to decide if she was tricking him. Her face wore a light easy expression, her eyes sparkled with humour and he couldn't work out what she was up to because if he looked at her for too long he just wanted to kiss her.

"I am a Gondoan now then?"  
"Soon you will be, when we get home."  
"To your farm."  
"Yes, that's what I said. Home."  
"Our home?"  
"Yes."  
"Thank you."  
"What for?"  
"I love you."

Suddenly his heart was floating like his head, one moment he'd been worried about this bathing thing and something suspicious at tonight's meal and then, in the blink of an eye he realized what she was offering him. If she was a princess and he a prince then they couldn't just live together in her farm could they? Only married people did that. Which meant…

She stopped stirring and wore a look on her face that definitely made him want to kiss her.

"_Paetsu, uesen yau al-dhu' ulve om_."(2)  
"I don't know how to say this in Gondoan."  
"Just say it in your tongue."  
"Sheeta, will you marry me?"

She gave him a cute smile, just a little one, off-hand and radiant with warmth.

"Of course. I thought that was obvious."  
"Ah…"  
"Come here, my beautiful clumsy boy."

He stood and walked around the laundry barrel.

"I love you very much, _Paetsu_, and of course I'll marry you. I've wanted to marry you since the minute before we said the spell of destruction. When you stood and held me in the throneroom I knew what sort of boy you really were. I knew then that I didn't need anyone else in my life, ever."  
"Right back then?"  
"Hm, of course."  
"Why didn't you say?"  
"Girls don't. Boys take the lead."

He chuckled.

"Hm, not me. I was a clueless idiot. And you put up with my fumbling about for weeks."  
"_Taeg Paetsu_, you fumble about beautifully. You learn fast, and learn beautifully too."  
"Sheeta, thank you. For everything. You're wonderful."  
"No, that's your job."  
"No, I'm just the clumsy one, the one who falls in streams, crashes aircraft and makes medicine by accident."  
"_Kaesu om-e_."

And he did, for a long time. After several minutes she pushed him away, she had to before it got to the point where she would be unable to.

"Mmm… _Paetsu_, let me put this laundry to dry. And your hair is disgusting, you didn't wash it last night. Look how long it's getting, it needs washing. I want to do that. And I'll give you that bath."

_- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -_

_28 March - 1 April 2007_

_(1) "Amen" would be the nearest equivalent.  
(2) Uesen is a general connective, continuity word. It can mean "and", "then", "as well", "so"._

_For author notes about Chapter Thirty Seven, please see my forum (click on my pen name)_


	39. Chapter 38 : Soil

**Chapter Thirty Eight - Soil **

"Is the owner of the threshold within?"

Shuna opened the tent flap. Pazu saw that he wore a slightly puzzled look. It had been Pazu who had spoken.

"Visitors, you are welcome over my threshold, please enter."

Pazu removed his boots, Sheeta hers and they once again conducted the formalities before sitting. In the dark the tent was even more unusual. Around the perimeter of the main space were placed a series of small pottery lamps, their bellies burned a sweet smelling oil, their tallow wicks gutted and danced in the slight draughts created by the carpet walls billowing from the snowy night pressing around the tent. Around the room the occupant's shadows played on the walls and the faces of those present were lit by the flickering firelight. From time to time the heavy tent walls would move more as a restless wind came along the valley.

Once again the conversation began. This time Keya spoke to Pazu and although resisting giving details Pazu spoke of his home town, his parents, his skills in engineering but he then bounced questions back to Keya asking about engineering in Gondoa (of which there was very little beyond wind and water powered pumps and irrigation). He asked of flying and Shuna said some lighter than air balloons were used with very weak engines that people bought in Restormel but in general the Gondoans did not fly. The fact that Pazu was an engineer seemed to interest Keya.

And once again the meal was amazing. To begin with small pastries spread with a spicy sour paste that woke up the palette. This was followed by a fish course. With a thick leather glove Keya pulled from the ashes of the fire earthenware balls, _eothren,(1) _Shuna called them, the size of large potatoes. Crumbling the soft clay away revealed fish steaks, baked in the fire's heat within the clay and again oiled in the ochre coloured paste. The lower half of the clay surround became the bowl from which the fish was eaten direct with the fingers. For the main course again the wooden bowls with _bomao_ and over this a stew of vegetables in a thick glutinous dark sauce, side dishes of sweet corn and green beans. Pazu ate, he was starving. Sheeta watched him.

"_Aqiwa_,"(2) she said, urgently, "_aqiwa, aqiwa, fhesta!_"(3)

Shuna poured water from a large animal skin into a pottery cup. He handed the cup to Sheeta and she held it out to Pazu.

"You'll need this."

He stopped chewing, looked at her. He looked at Keya and saw the younger man had a slight smile on his face. Then it hit him, a heat, a burning searing heat on his tongue and against the inside of his mouth.

"Urh…!"

He took the water and drank. More, he needed more. He held the cup out to Shuna.

"_Aqiwa!_"

The older man poured.

"You learn the language fast _Paetsu_, in your time of need it is well to learn fast."

He was smiling and beside Pazu, Sheeta was giggling. Her waterfall laugh filled the tent. Shuna grinned and even Keya made a small smile.

"Urgh! Oh, wow!"

Pazu swallowed two, three cups of water.

"Ow! That's hot!"

He fanned his hand in front of his mouth while Sheeta continued to laugh.

"_Paetsu_, the _konsha_ spice can be added more heavily to meals to make more heat. Keya, are you our cook again?"  
"Lady, I am, did I do wrong?"  
"I think you did mischief, didn't you? Please don't make fun of our guest, my companion. He is your _Paetsu_ as well remember."  
"My lady, forgive me, I am but an ignorant man of the soil."

Keya bowed his head, palms together.

_but he's made his point_

Pazu knew it was deliberate. Earlier in the day Sheeta had felt Keya was curious about him. Harmless mischief it may have been but Pazu took a disliking to Keya at once. Fun with the hot spices was nothing, there was something else about the man, the way he looked at him, as though he were an intruder. Sheeta spoke again and this time there was a clear edge in her voice.

"Keya, tonight let us talk of light things. I do not wish to hear of the soil."

Shuna interrupted.

"Keya, offer our guest the meat."

Keya found another bowl, added _bomao_ and then a second stew of lighter colour with small pieces of yaoko steak in it.

"Please, _Paztsu_, this is less warm, called _yaoksu_, more to your liking I hope."  
"You eat it Keya. I will stick with this. What is it called?"

Keya stared at him, a sudden flicker passed across the man's eyes.

"_Paztsu_, the vegetable stew is called _mescah_, I like it hot, please don't struggle with it."  
"One day I'll take you to my old home, the Ravine. I'll serve you Judd's meatballs. But I won't laugh at you. You will be welcome there."

Keya's smile faltered.

"And the name is _Paetsu_."

The atmosphere around the fire changed suddenly. Sheeta was watching Pazu, Shuna kept an eye on Keya.

"With respect my friend, _Paetsu_ is a prince who has returned."  
"I'm aware of that."  
"_Paztsu_ is a prince who is away, one who is lost."

Pazu stared at the man. Neither dropped their gaze.

"I'm not lost, Keya. I am returning."

Beside him Pazu felt Sheeta move, raise an arm. Keya's eyes flickered quickly to her and then back to Pazu. Shuna had moved also, raised a hand against Sheeta, a clear _wait, lets see where this goes_ gesture, thought Pazu.

"Do you think I'm not _Paetsu_? Do you think I am _Paztsu_? Or even an imposter, some foreigner come to steal your _Lucita_?"  
"_Paetsu_," Sheeta spoke urgently  
"I'm fine, Sheeta, unless I am making myself offensive here and causing our kind hosts insult, perhaps Keya would care to answer," he never for a second dropped his gaze.  
"_Paztsu_, you are very bold."  
"And you Keya are very rude. Sheeta calls me by my name. You call me by another. I have no particular problem with you being rude to me, but when you are rude to Sheeta, then I take offence."

The young Gondoan flicked his eyes again at Sheeta and back to Pazu.

"I think perhaps we need to lay this subject aside and speak of lighter things," Shuna had spoken.  
"Shuna, we know nothing of this man, he could be any _onthuo_."(4)  
"That is true. An earth dweller, just like you Keya. It has been seven hundred years, we are all _onthuo_ now. Do you think I'm an imposter? A liar? An upstart? A foreigner here to cause trouble?"  
"_Paetsu!_" Sheeta sounded annoyed now  
"Do you want me to stop this conversation Sheeta? I will if you say so."

Pazu still wasn't looking at her, but at the young man opposite him. Shuna wondered, this _Paetsu_ spoke to Sheeta but did not look at her. This young man, crudely dressed, no beard, not much more than a boy, spoke to his social superior without eye contact, a clear insult. And yet, and yet, Sheeta did not seem to be offended by his actions. That meant… that meant she was his. Under his spell. And that might be a problem.

Sheeta, to his great surprise said nothing, and nothing meant_ carry on, let's see where this goes. _Shuna changed his sitting position a little, Pazu thought the way he sat now he could get up fast if necessary. Pazu assumed the men had brought their swords inside the tent at night, and wondered how far away they were. Pazu was closest to the entryway, Sheeta next, the two men were the far side of the fire. Without looking up, Pazu measured distances around the inside of the tent; an escape route.

"Well, Keya, what is your answer?"

The young man had a nonchalant air about him, confidence, a card up his sleeve. _He knows something I don't_, Pazu thought.

"_Paztsu_, how can we know? How is it possible to decide such a thing? There is only one proof and I doubt we can see that proof tonight."  
"Oh, I think we can."

He broke eye contact with Keya for the first time since his mouth had been burned by the food. He turned to Sheeta and held out his hand.

"Please."

She knew what he wanted, what she didn't know was what he would do. Wondering quite where this would end, she reached up and untied the leather cord at her neck. The stone, until now hidden under her dress, came into view. Keya looked at it. Both Shuna and Sheeta saw him looking. Pazu took it by its leather string, it swayed with the movement of his hand. Keya stared at it, the stone, the stone of Laputa, touched only by royalty. In the hand of a stranger. It swung on its cord, turning gently and within the heart shaped crystal behind the crest there was something moving. A small light came from it, just a gentle glow. Keya ran his tongue along his lip, Sheeta and Shuna both saw his eyes change as he looked at it.

Cupping one hand under the other, Pazu let the stone come into his hand. It lay there softly pulsing, swirling, his palm became white-blue.

"Keya, you know this better than I don't you? Who can draw a spell from the stone?"  
"Queens, Kings, Princesses, Princes, no others."  
"Royalty? From any of the four nations?"  
"True."  
"If I speak a word of command and this stone responds I am royalty. Do you agree?"  
"It would be true."  
"That is not what I asked. If I speak a word of command and this stone responds, who am I?"

Pazu's voice was level, strong. He could feel the stone in his hand, not just it's weight and shape but something else, a living beating thing. It was like holding a tiny bird there, warm and eager. A bird that wanted to take flight. He felt something odd, the stone wanted to become magic, it wanted to become power, it didn't like lying dormant around a neck on a cord, its natural state was active, passionate and living. Around her neck it was like a cold steam engine, out of use. It wanted to be fired up, its furnace roaring, its boiler full and its steam pressure dancing past the red line. It wasn't a dead thing, but alive. It craved life. That sensation slightly perturbed Pazu but he didn't let that show. He did wonder if Sheeta knew this.

"You would be _Paetsu_, prince of Gondoa."

Keya's voice was firm, still confident, but a mildly arrogant smile played at his lips. It seemed he knew nothing would happen.

"And more importantly, when I am _Paetsu_, will you recognize me as such?"

Silence.

"As Sheeta does. Sheeta recognizes me, you deny that she's right. That's why I am angry Keya, not with your opinion of me, but with your opinion of her. Don't you see that?"  
"I see that."  
"Then recognize me, and apologize to her."  
"The stone will not respond _Paztsu_."  
"Don't you trust the judgment of the lady beside me? Do you think she would travel away for a month and return, saying the stone had led her to someone and she would accept me, yet you think she is deluded, or worse, lying to you?"  
"I did not say that."  
"You are thinking it."  
"_Paetsu_, I think this has gone far enough."  
"No Sheeta, if we don't finish this tonight, I don't know when it will finish."  
"Say your word then Paztsu, draw forth a spell. If you can."  
"Keya it is wrong. This is wrong," Shuna seemed furious  
"I must have an answer Shuna. If this _Paztsu_ can do this, I will know."

Pazu held the stone high. He knew what to do, he spoke quietly, in an almost offhand way.

"_Lirhum_."

Instantly, without even a moment of waiting, of building, of _coming_ the tent was filled with light, a warm, strong, rich pale blue torch was in Pazu's hand. He could feel it on his skin, it was buzzing, throbbing, it became warm. On Laputa he'd not noticed this, he'd been too afraid. In the forest, with Sheeta's last breath sighing from her body, he'd been too distraught to care. But now it felt like he held a living thing, not a rock. This wasn't a mineral, and this wasn't magic. In that tent on that snowy night Pazu learned. In his hand was a thing alive, a thing not of magic but of power, of life-force. For an instant he was afraid.

The orange warm tones of firelight and lamplight were replaced by a world of palpable blue. In the huge library the blue light had been strong, it had filled the gigantic cavern. Here in this tiny space it almost blinded, burned the eyes, the hot flames of the fire became transparent and irrelevant. And there came a noise in the tent, a low humming. Outside the tent, out of the central hole where the smoke of the fire issued there stood a blue column, straight and pure, an arrow of light. It stood a pillar of purity between hearth and heaven, extending up until the eye couldn't measure it.

--I--  
---o-o-oOo-o-o---  
I I

On the road, beside the snowy field in which their skidplane sat, the two men in dark coats looked up from their roaring campfire. In the next valley, or the next one to that, there came something that caught their eyes, an impossible vertical ray of blue. Monoghan had been with Muska at Tepis but had not gone on board Goliath. He had stayed at the fortress, or what remained of it. He knew this blue line, this arrow. He had seen it briefly shine from the top of a tower and flicker to the eastern sky. Monoghan knew what this was.

"There, we need to move. Now."

--I--  
---o-o-oOo-o-o---  
I I

"_Paetsu!_ Enough, please!"

Sheeta's voice was shrill. Pazu on the other hand was worried. He didn't know how to stop it. When they had climbed back up from the library she had doused the stone with a word he had not heard. Now this living, vibrating, humming, hot thing was in his hand. Keya and Shuna both had their eyes shaded by their hands, their faces turned away.

Then it came to him. The word popped into his head, unbidden. _Emshieh.(5)_

"_Emshieh!_"

The light was gone. The yellow firelight seemed weak and pathetic in comparison.

_where did the word come from? who said it in my head?_

There was sudden movement, Keya got up, stepped around Shuna and went outside.

"Keya!"

Shuna stood and followed him.

"Well, now they know, at least," Sheeta looked at Pazu.  
"Here, yours," he handed the stone back  
"_Paetsu_, I'm not so sure. It might be yours," she gave him an odd look, part fear, part impressed awe.

She put it back around her neck. Shuna came back in.

"I am very sorry, please, I crave your forgiveness, lady."  
"I think it is _Paetsu_ who might ask your forgiveness."  
"Yes, Shuna, I'm sorry. That wasn't necessary."  
"No, _Paetsu_, perhaps it was. Now we know, now he knows. My prince."

He bowed his head.

"Perhaps we should leave?" Sheeta stood up. Pazu did also.  
"If you wish lady, although my threshold is yours to stay within."  
"Do you still want us to travel with you tomorrow?"  
"Lady, it is I who should ask if it is _you_ who still wishes to travel with _us_. Keya was very rude, I will speak stern words to him later."  
"Shuna, in this weather we cannot travel on foot, we have no warm clothing, no tent," said Pazu, "if this snow keeps up we might be stuck here all winter. Yes, thanks, we'll come with you. When are you leaving?"  
"When do you wish to leave, _Paetsu_?"  
"Early, we will eat in the inn, you take a quick breakfast. Come into the yard ready to go. Knock on the door. As soon as you can."  
"I understand. We will. In the morning then. My lady," he bowed, "and my prince," another bow.  
"Let's go."

Pazu led Sheeta out, and it wasn't lost on Shuna who was in charge here. Outside the snow was falling thickly. Keya was nowhere in sight.

--I--  
---o-o-oOo-o-o---  
I I

"Did I do wrong?"  
"I don't think it matters, wrong or right, it's done."  
"Keya worried me, right from this morning he worried me, the way he looked at me. Do you know him well?"  
"No, he's just one of the village men. Shuna is his uncle. And no, I don't think you did do wrong. I had thought we would have to face this sooner or later."

They were in bed, Pazu had lit a fire in the bedroom's small grate but even with its heat the room was night winter cold. Sheeta pressed close to him for warmth. She spoke to his chest, he spoke to her hair. Down below their legs were intertwined. They touched together everywhere they could, to try and gain warmth.

"Is it like this all the time?"  
"Oh, no, it's because of you. Keya is of the soil, like many in Gondoa. Others are of the sky. Your coming is going to upset some people, it is going to split things into two."  
"Soil?"  
"One who does not believe we should return to the sky or even now relearn the old things – flying, the machinery, the science. Originally these were the people who cast _Phom_ out. From that day people have turned their back on flying and all it stands for."  
"Oh, my."  
"And those who are of the sky oppose them in their thinking. These people would originally have been _Phom's_ supporters. But today it tends to mean those who think we should build flying machines and other machinery, re-learn the science."

She felt Pazu move against her, he was shaking his head.

"I can't believe this, an argument that goes on and on for seven hundred years? That's crazy."  
"No, _Paetsu_, that's people."  
"I don't understand minds like that."  
"I'm sorry. Do you forgive me?"  
"Absolutely. Of course. Uh, what am I forgiving you for?"  
"Bringing you here. To this mess."

Pazu moved and looked down at her, at her wonderful face amid that storm of wonderful hair.

"Sheeta, where you are, I am. That's all I care about. War, winter storms, stupid infighting between people, it doesn't matter. For you, I'll go anywhere, do anything."  
"_Paetsu_, you know, you might have to. I'm sorry, my fault, I just didn't think this through. You are going to be an important person soon, in a few days. You will need to make decisions. People will be looking to you for a direction to take."  
"Soil. That's you. You're of the soil aren't you?"  
"I am. But more than that I'm of you."  
"You said, in Hamar's wagon, you said you didn't want people to know about the past, that it was even better to lose those beautiful songs, this beautiful language than risk having another Muska come along."  
"Yes."  
"Do you still think that way?"  
"I don't know. That was before I realized finally who you were. And before I'd even worked out that if you were _Paetsu_, what that would mean."  
"Sheeta, you need to know, if you don't already. I'm of the sky."  
"Yes. I know."  
"And you?"  
"I don't know."  
"I don't want you to be of the soil, Sheeta. You can't be on one side and me on the other."  
"I know, but now I don't know what I want, other than you."  
"I want you too. More than anything."  
"I want… now. I want you now."  
"What?"  
"_Paetsu_, my beautiful boy. Can I have you?"  
"Now?"  
"Hm."

So he gave himself. And this time, their second time, it was different. Before it had been urgent and physical and full of wondrous heat and burning discovery. This time they did this for comfort, for each other. This meeting, this pressing together was a medicine, a balm, a protective blanket against the coming days when they would face a force they didn't yet understand. This time there was even a slight taste of fear. Nor was there any fumbling this time, he knew what she needed, what she liked, and she knew he liked to kiss her where she was soft, so she lay there, not guiding him, letting him enjoy her. He made the decisions, he kissed, he bit, with his teeth he scraped exquisite lines across her, he touched, he entered. She let him. She asked if he minded her blood and he said no, he thought she was beautiful where she bled, where her blood was like the sunrise he wanted to be. He marveled even at the colour of her blood on his fingers. She asked if he needed her touch and he kissed away her request, no, this time no, this time is for you, you are of the soil and I am of the sky and the two should not be apart, the two should be together, let us make them together, let us be together, the sky darting down to the soil, falling upon the land, pressing within the soil, like a plough to the wet earth.

This time it was quiet. This time she did not cry out but held him with quiet sighs and soft moans as he drew her from the rich earth and lifted her up with him to the sky, the startling blue sky, cloudless and pure. Strong he was, the bright sun, he lifted her to the sun and offered her up to its burning heat and she came there, quietly, almost resting, resting in the soft embrace of his love, his caring, his need. She closed her eyes and drifted, calm and complete, finished and warm. He as always, as he did, followed after, always following she who had gone on ahead. He finished later and caught her and they lay quietly together and wondered, each within themselves if the soil and the sky ever could be joined, or whether it was hopeless and that time and people and circumstance would forever keep them parted.

But even in all this, in the midst of her doubts and confusion and worries about sky and soil, inside Sheeta a warm thing fluttered, a delicious heat, a happy thing.

_we're going to be married, we're going to be married, he asked me to marry him, we will get married. I love him. he loves me. I love him. _

Whatever happened, however things might go, surely this was enough?

_- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - _

_31 March – 1 April 2007 _

_(1) __Eothren__ : egg  
(2) Aqiwa : water  
(3) Fhesta : fast, quickly  
(4) Onthuo : earth, or in this instance earth dwellers, people who are not descended from the flying nations.  
(5) Emshieh : end, finish. _

_For author notes about Chapter Thirty Eight, please see my forum (click on my pen name)_


	40. Chapter 39 : Sky

**Chapter Thirty Nine - Sky  
**  
"_Emshieh_. What does it mean?"  
"End. Finish. You know that."  
"I do now. I didn't last night."  
"You must have. You said it."  
"No. And that worries me. After I drew out the _lirhum_ spell I had no idea how to stop it. As I was sat there in panic the word _emshieh_ came into my head, I spoke it and the spell ended."

Sheeta twisted in the saddle and looked at him.

"You spoke a Gondoan word without ever hearing it before?"  
"It seems so. I just heard it in my head."  
"A voice? In your head?"  
"No, not a voice, don't worry, I'm not going mad. I suddenly just knew it, like I'd known it years."  
"Paetsu, I think flying blood is thicker in you that we both realized. If you can remember a word then at some point someone must have taught it to you."  
"I remember vaguely a very old man. I thought he was an uncle, or maybe a grandfather. You know, I can see his face now, but I just can't remember his name. My parents died when I was eight, he must have gone before then. I can only just remember him."  
"I wonder if _emshieh_ comes from him."  
"I can't think where else it could have."

They were sharing a horse, riding along a muddy track, trees bowed to them on either hand, heavy with snow. The white silent winter landscape rolled smoothly away to left and right – fields, low hills, woodland, and ahead moorland. The land was rising. The day was peaceful with the deadened sound that only comes with snow. The sky above was that flat pale grey that forebodes more snow although for now it had stopped. Ahead of them Shuna sat side saddle on the broad shoulders of one of the yaoko, the second animal, tethered by a ring though its nose to the harness of the one in front, walked dozily behind, both oxen piled up high with supplies and the tent equipment. Sheeta and Pazu shared Shuna's horse.

They had woken early, entangled in each others arms. Wanting to cuddle in the deep warmth of the bed, Pazu was annoyed by Sheeta pushing him out. They had washed and dressed quickly in the dark, had bought breakfast – one more silver coin gone – and then, returning to their room, had packed and sat watching from the window as daylight came.

"Here they are!"

Sheeta bounced up, grabbing their belongings, Pazu picked up his knapsack and they went outside. In the half light of the muddy yard Shuna dismounted from his horse, the two yaoko behind him were burdened with a huge pile of sacks, boxes, carpets and tent poles.

"Good morning."

Sheeta went to him, smiling. Shuna approached. He bowed to her, then to Pazu walking behind.

"My lady, _Paetsu_, did you sleep well?"  
"We did, thank you. Are you ready to go?"  
"Yes, all packed. Here, you two share my horse. I will ride one of the pack animals."  
"Where's Keya?" Pazu walked to the horse.  
"Gone. In the night. He came back to the tent, packed his bedding and equipment, took some food and left. I tried to stop him but he wouldn't stay."  
"What did he say?"  
"Nothing, nothing at all. He simply told me to keep out of his way. He was angry, but don't worry, he is my nephew, his father, my older brother will knock some sense into him. I will speak with him about Keya."

Sheeta looked at Pazu. The boy merely shrugged.

"He won't do anything stupid will he?"  
"You will need to tell me what you mean by 'stupid', _Paetsu_."  
"I assume he refuses to recognize me."  
"That is my assumption."  
"That means he no longer recognizes Sheeta as well."  
"That is possible, but unlikely. My guess is he still sees her as his princess. He only has issues with you as prince."  
"What are your laws on that?"  
"It is hard to say, the royal line is so weak and diluted now they do not hold any real power any more. They mainly live as ordinary farmers. I suppose by law Keya should be obliged to recognize the royal line and if he refuses he becomes _ohtrouth_ – outcast, and must go away. But you would need to prove your royal blood."  
"Surely that is easy, the stone."  
"It would appear easy, but you don't know our laws, our way of life. There are some who say the bloodline of _Phom_ is now invalid because he was disowned. When King Thurosa sent his son away the son ceased to be royalty. But not everyone agrees, it is complicated."  
"But if I bring a spell out of the stone?"  
"No matter, your blood may be royal but it is disowned blood, banished blood. People might argue that you too are _ohtrouth._"  
"Soil and sky."  
"Yes, Paetsu, soil and sky. _Suul ue skur_.(1) You learn quickly."  
"We should be going, Keya or no Keya, the daylight is short now."  
"Yes. Lady Sheeta, can you ride astride?"  
"No, I am still bleeding. Can you set up a side step for me?"  
"Of course."

Shuna worked at the right shoulder of the horse arranging in place a wooden board held to the saddle by two straps. Sheeta lifted her skirts, Pazu assisted her up and she stepped on the board and with Pazu guiding her she swung up and then around to sit in the saddle sideways, her feet together resting on the makeshift step to the horse's right flank. As she had in the tent, she lifted her skirt and sat with her bare skin on the saddle, letting her dress hang around her. Pazu offered her the warm aviators jacket which she buttoned up, turning up the fleece lined collar.

Pazu looked at the horse, it was big and he'd never ridden before.

"Come around behind me. Put your left foot in the left stirrup, hold the saddle rim behind me, and the pommel to my left. Then bounce on your right leg two or three times to get a good boost up, climb with your left leg and swing your right leg over. You'll be sitting on his rump, behind the saddle."

Pazu did as she instructed and found it easier than he thought. It felt odd to be astride a living animal, the horse's powerful muscles moved beneath him, he felt like he would fall off. In some ways it was like being on the rattling and bucking footplate of the little Ravine mine shunting engines.

"Reach your toes forwards, get in the stirrups."

Shuna adjusted the stirrup length for Pazu while Sheeta held the reins.

"Medisha is a big horse but not stubborn or cross. He'll forgive you if annoy him a little. Just don't annoy him a lot."  
"What annoys him a lot?" asked Pazu  
"Being ridden. Unless it's me."

Shuna didn't smile. But the boy laughed, the man was joking, surely? When he was settled Pazu lifted the poncho that covered him.

"Under here."

Sheeta smiled and ducked sideways under the fleece lined leather, pushing her head and shoulders up into it and then putting her arms out through the slits. Her head popped out the top.

"Cozy. Just like the night in the glider."  
"Yes."

Shuna made himself a space sidesaddle on one of the broad shoulders of the lead yaoko. He turned the hairy steaming animal around and with a stick, whacked it's rump to make it walk out of the yard, the tethered second animal following. Sheeta did the riding, directing the horse with rein and crop.

"Shuna!" Pazu shouted, "I need to go south out of town two or three miles to begin with. I need to collect something."

--I--  
---o-o-oOo-o-o---  
I I

Outside the inn, Monoghan and his partner Reese, stood at the corner of a side street, watching. They had flown here last night and been observing the few inns in town. Having seen the Gondoan man with his mountain yaks in the paddock behind this one, they had stayed here. There was no question, the boy and the girl Surun was interested in left on horseback heading south with the Gondoan hunter.

Monoghan pulled on black leather gloves and held his dark coat collar up against the freezing air. He turned and went down the street the other way, Reese at his heel. Their skidplane was by the river on the far side of town, and in it was the field radio he needed to use.

--I--  
---o-o-oOo-o-o---  
I I

At the tree bole where he had left the rifle, Pazu clumsily dismounted and retrieved it and the ammunition belt. He swung the belt across one shoulder bandolier style, and slipped the rifle onto his arm by its leather strap. The grey woolen blanket was soaked through, hard with ice. He threw it away. Shuna watched without comment. Gondoans did not use firearms and many distrusted the mechanical weapons. The rifle looked heavy and he knew Pazu would have his work cut out keeping such a weapon serviceable in the freezing winter weather. The grey daylight finally banished the greyer dawn. They set off.

--I--  
---o-o-oOo-o-o---  
I I

They had been riding two hours. Shuna was ahead and the road had been climbing steadily now into the hills. Passing traffic was sparse, a few horsemen and two farm carts. This part of Restormel was certainly quiet.

Sheeta leaned her right side against Pazu and he pressed forward against her to keep them both warm. He still felt like he might fall off, riding a horse was very odd, it was impossible to get used to it, he just tried to sway his hips in time to the heavy rolling gait of the animal's haunches, letting his lower half move but keeping his upper body upright. The high collar of her leather jacket came up above the top of the poncho and only Sheeta's nose and eyes peeped over the top. Under the poncho they were snug and warm, she held the reins and he had his arms around her waist. The only problem was her bare legs, she had pulled her thick socks up to her knees but she really needed britches or leg wrappings such as Shuna wore, but for now, with his cozy heat and familiar Pazu-smell against her, she was happy. When he spoke his breath was on her temple, his lips in her hair. The magical winter landscape was all around, her landscape – she knew winter well, Gondoa's longest season. Not far now, two or three days. She was going home, he was with her and she was in love. And he would marry her. That delicious thought kept her warm against the fiercest cold.

"I was four when my parents died," she said, "I hardly remember them, they are just faint shapes now, faint smells, ghost faces."  
"They did a good job in four years. You should be proud of them."  
"I am. I still love them, even though memory of them is fading."  
"My mystery uncle, or grandfather, I don't know which, he must have died or left the family at about the same age for me. I remember badly hurting my arm when I was five playing with some friends. I broke it falling out of a tree. I think he must have gone before then."  
"How old are you? Suddenly I've just realized I don't know how old you are or when your birthday is."  
"I'm sixteen, Sheeta. My birthday is the seventh of the seventh month."  
"Wait, that was when we were at Tanners wasn't it?"  
"It was, the third day we were there. I was stacking barley all day and you weren't talking to me."  
"I think, actually _Paetsu_, _you_ weren't talking to _me_."  
"Hm, less than a month ago. Weren't we stupid then?"  
"Speak for yourself."  
"And your birthday?"  
"The seventh too. Of the third month."  
"Well, wait a minute… that's, yes, that's exactly opposite mine. The other side of the year."(2)  
"It is?"  
"Hm, eight months and our birthdays are four months apart."  
"I'm exactly a half year younger than you."  
"Younger? Ha, I assumed you were older."  
"No, do I act like it?"  
"Hm, you do."  
"Yes, I suppose it is funny, exactly a half year apart. Anyway, happy birthday for a month ago."  
"Thank you. Have you got me a present?"

She turned to him. They were so close her face was almost touching his.

"I might have."  
"What?"  
"Come closer. Come and get it."

He did. And she gave it to him. Without her concentrating on riding the horse, the animal stopped. He stood and swung his neck around to chew on the dead twigs of the hedge.

"Mmm, Paetsu, no. Not _here_."

She spoke in muffled tones, her lips against his. His hands had lifted from her waist and one of them had undone a button of the leather jacket and slipped inside, higher, on her front, where she was curved and soft. They continued the kiss. She said no but she didn't stop him. Then she had to. Before he took her to the point where it would be too hard to say no.

"I think that's enough. This is just a late birthday present. Not our wedding night."  
"Mm, sorry. I just love you, love kissing you, love touching. _Yau ulve om, yau kaesu ulve, yau taeh ulve om._"  
"Really, you're terrible. A few days ago you were too afraid to take that first step. You knew nothing."  
"And look at me now. I blame teacher."  
"You are turning into a very naughty boy. And your hand is still there. Take it off. We need to catch Shuna up."

He kissed her gently one last time, gave her a final tender stroke and took his hand away.

"Just keeping you warm."  
"No, actually I think you were keeping your hand warm. Oh, and by the way, your language is getting very good."  
"Alright with you that is, but not much use yet for going into a hardware store for supplies."  
"True. I'll do that, you stick with the bedroom talk, I think that will work. Medisha, _paed-ur meh_."(3)

--I--  
---o-o-oOo-o-o---  
I I

"So, come on then, what is _telle_? I missed out on it last night."  
"You did, which was a pity. I don't know what Shuna's plans are for tonight, whether he will head for a Gondoan-friendly inn, or make camp. If we camp he might not make up a _telle_ just for three people."  
"We've only got one tent."  
"Oh, when traveling we all sleep together."  
"_In one bed_?"  
"No, you idiot! Oh, for heaven's sake! Why did I meet such a… I don't know. You are unbelievably hopeless."  
"Don't rip my head off! You said we sleep together."  
"In the _same tent_. If a party of Gondoans are traveling, each brings their _tumurh_, their tent, lengths of _caern_, woven wall and floor covering and the _puol_ or poles. They are very clever. Because they are all made to the same pattern, they are interchangeable. The party will select a campsite then assemble all the _tumurh_ into one big communal construction, often of a star shape, at the ends of the points of the star each family has its bed. In the centre is the _he-ayerth_. I can tell you when a big group gets together around the _he-ayerth_ after a long day and we sing songs and dance and play music and the _telle_ is passed around. Well, it's lovely. Lots of fun."

She paused for a moment looking at the ground, when she spoke again, her voice was somber and low.

"I miss it. _Paetsu_, it's a wonderful life. I don't know if I could ever change and be without these people, this community, this friendship."  
"I think I understand. Soil. You are of the soil."  
"I am. I'm sorry. It's my life. Flying machines, industry, steam engines, motor vehicles, farm machinery. It would destroy this world."  
"I know. Knowing that doesn't make me love you any less, or want to be with you any less. In fact, the opposite, I think."  
"But the sky?"  
"I know, the sky. We'll work something out."

_but how? flying machines, industry and science here, in a land of farms and oxen and men with bows? it isn't going to work is it? something has to give. someone has to give. _

"If Keya is of the soil, is Shuna of the sky?"  
"You know, I don't think I know. He's an older man though, Keya is young, headstrong, a little like you. But Shuna behaves correctly. He could be accepting you simply because that's the proper thing to do. What he really thinks, I don't know."  
"Do you know anyone in your village who is of the sky?"  
"I do, but I'm sure they will make themselves known to you soon after you arrive."  
"Are there more soil than sky people?"  
"So many questions. Are you planning a fight or something?"  
"Sorry. Just trying to plan ahead."  
"_Paetsu_, there is no need to stick your head into a bees nest the day you arrive. It might take months for things to begin to happen, so don't force anything and certainly don't annoy anyone. Try not to do another Keya. Spend time getting to know people. And just be yourself. They can't fail to like you if you are just you."

Pazu looked around, looked up. A faint swishing noise, a noise he knew very well.

"Shuna!" he was almost screaming, "Get under the trees! Now! Get the _yaoko_ out of sight! Hurry!"

Without needing to be asked, Sheeta swung Medisha off the lane and under cover of a large pine tree, she walked him into a small wood a little way. They sat, looking up, keeping still. Through the snow-thick branches they saw the skidplane, sleek and silver and very quiet. It came north, circled around twice, came lower then passed away eastwards. Pazu, his arms holding Sheeta tight, waited a full two minutes after it was lost to sight before allowing her to move.

"Paetsu, I've had enough. Those men, why won't they leave us alone? I'm sick of it!"

Pazu was more worried about how Muska's men had found them. Weeks had passed since the gunfight near the railway, how had they found them? Surely they weren't randomly sweeping the whole country? What had led them here, just two days after meeting Shuna? And Keya.

_Keya._ Pazu's blood ran cold. Could Keya somehow have spoken to these suited city men? It didn't seem likely, that would put Sheeta in harms way, surely he wouldn't do that?

They continued north along the hills, always rising up onto the fells, the foothills of mountains. And as they rode on, in a silent hug on Shuna's big horse, Pazu continued to look to the sky. A sky of low grey flat cloud, a sky of flying machines, of science and of men who would imprison her again. It began to snow again. The snow fell. From the sky onto the soil. Pazu didn't miss the simile, he recalled her words. He was of the sky, she of the soil. He wanted to fall on her. But that would mean turning his back on flying, on that beautiful promise of a future that library held, on everything he'd had as dreams for his whole life. Pazu continued to watch the sky, in fear.

_- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - _

_1- __2 April 2007_

_(1) Suul ue skur : soil and sky -or- soil or sky, "ue" is a shortened form of uesen, the generic connective expression (then, or, and, also, etc). The inflexion in the voice determines the exact meaning (between, for example "and" and "or").  
(2) You'll recall from chapter 36 "Bleeding" that the year on this planet is eight months each of 45 days. For Pazu and Sheeta's birthdays to be four months apart would be six months in our world. Pazu's birthday is early in the seventh month, during the harvest. Sheeta's is early in the third month, in the spring.  
(3) Paed-ur meh : "walk on now". _

For author notes about Chapter Thirty Nine, please see my forum (click on my pen name)


	41. Chapter 40 : Telle

**Chapter Forty - _Telle_  
**  
Pazu had known no evening like it. The shouting, talking, laughing, fighting evenings he'd seen at the Red Cow Inn were nothing compared to this. In the Red Cow different tables or groups entertained themselves with cards, dominoes, shove ha'penny, drinking or telling stories, all small puddles of private conversation, inward looking. Very occasionally a few of the miners or engineers would bring in fiddles, tambourines, mouth organs or a squeezebox and people would sing, sometimes even dance, but these times were rare.

Compared to _this_ they were like him staying at home alone in his cabin and reading a book. Here his mind and senses were assaulted by the noise, the heat, the smells, the colours and the motion. It was like these people needed to do this to generate heat to keep the winter away. Where he came from, if it was cold, you would eat a bowl of stew and it would feed you and warm you. Here the way to feed the spirit and warm the body and keep going was to sing, dance, play music and, it would appear, go mad.

They had reached the inn well after dark. Shuna had wanted to push on after sunset to get here. It would save pitching the _tumurh _and if they started early tomorrow, one more hard push would get them to Bruaendell the following night. So dark had come and with it more snow. They were high in the hills now, riding on moorland where the trees were small and stunted, struggling to grow in the thin soil and biting wind. Pazu thought Sheeta's legs must be frozen but she never once complained.

They were riding a narrow track up the side of a valley, climbing towards a dark fell when at the head of the valley Pazu saw a yellow light. They plodded on, the light growing slowly closer, the valley narrowing. At the head of the re-entrant the steepening valley sides became tumbled with rocks and scree, the wind howled mercilessly up this scarred slash in the hills and the hairy rump of the yaoko ahead of them was now white with wind blown snow. The track turned sharply left and crossed a roaring mountain brook by way of a small stone bridge. Pazu looked down. He could hear the water foaming below them but in the darkness saw nothing. Beyond the bridge the fat white rump of Shuna's trailing yaoko, almost the only thing he could see in the dark and snow, swung to the right again and proceeded slowly up a steepening grade. Pazu looked up, the yellow light was at the top of this hill. A quarter mile of steep track and the light became a lantern, squeaking and swaying in the wind above a doorway with a pair of brightly lit windows, one to each side of it.

They halted outside the building. It was of one storey, broad, squat, stone built, with outward spreading walls, deep-set tiny windows and a steeply pitched roof. A stubby stone chimney with a weather cap pierced the roof and a curl of smoke issued from it. To their left and right two other tracks came across the hills and met here, the marks of other traffic in the snow being the only sign, in the worsening weather, that roads were there. The snow was beginning to drift now, blending the building into the hill, making them one.

Shuna dismounted and led the yaoko to the side of the building and around into a courtyard protected by a timber fence. Sheeta encouraged Medisha to follow and they dismounted in the yard. Pazu was stiff from riding and his back and thighs ached from being unaccustomed to the posture. As he stepped down, he staggered and continued downwards landing on his backside in the snow.

Stepping off the footboard, Sheeta nimbly bounced down. She looked at him.

"_Not_ a good place to rest. Stay there ten minutes and no-one need worry about soil and sky ever again, you wouldn't be going to Gondoa except in a box."  
"My legs. They're agony. And my backside! _Ow!_"  
"Ah, you're useless. Maybe I should leave you there. Go inside and find a real man."  
"Help me up."  
"Looks like I'll have to."

She planted her feet apart and bent from the waist, offering him both hands. He grasped them and pushed up from the snow. She leaned back and using her body weight in a smooth swift movement hauled him up. He banged the snow from his legs. He hurt all over, especially everywhere.

"Shuna, do you need help with the animals?" she called across the yard.  
"No, plenty of space in the stable. I will untack and rub them down. There should be food here too. You go in. Mine is a winter ale. Hot."  
"Alright. If you can't see us inside we'll be as close to the fire as we can get. Oh, _Paetsu_, give Shuna your rifle, you don't want to take that inside, very bad manners."

Sheeta led him to a doorway at the back of the building. Under the deep porch of what looked like thatch she stopped. Pazu saw that the side of her hair was covered with snow. He stopped and looked, she was half white, half gorgeous.

"Wait."

He knocked the snow off.

"Ow, oh, _you_… that went right down my neck!"  
"Ah, _tsuru_."  
"I don't think I've ever met such a clumsy oaf!"  
"But you love me."  
"I have no idea why. Turn round."

He did so, the back of the poncho was thick with wet snow. Sheeta knocked it off, all except for a handful which she saved.

"Done."

He turned back to her and with perfect timing she lifted her cupped hand and plopped it palm open, full of snow into his face.

"Hey! You little… come here!"

Giggling, she dodged around him and ducked past, he spun round, went after her back out into the yard. He'd only gone a few paces when his aching thigh muscles gave up and he collapsed again into the snow.

"Ow! My legs!"

She stopped and turned, breathing heavily, hands on knees. She laughed harder.

"Don't. My legs are agony! I'm cramping. Damn! Ow! Don't stand there laughing, help me up!"

She came over still snorting and coughing back laughter.

"What am I doing agreeing to marry you? You are the most hopeless boy on the planet. Come here."

She bent again and held her arms out. He took them, and instead of boosting himself up, he pulled her down. As she over balanced he rolled aside and she went face first into the snow making a surprised sound.

"Ek!"

While she was still down he rolled back and smacked her bottom.

"Oi! You!"

He got up, looked down at her as she rolled over, covered in it.

"_Not_ a good place to rest. Stay there ten minutes and you wouldn't be going to Gondoa except in… _nah!_"

He received a face full of snow suddenly kicked up from her boot.

"Right, princess or not, _that's it_."

He caught up an armful of snow and dumped it on her but she rolled aside and it harmlessly showered her back. She rose onto all fours and scooped up a large handful at him. He responded with snowballs and for five minutes they ran around the yard, yelling, squealing and laughing. Eventually his attacks were too much, her face and hair full of snow she ran off squeaking like a mouse. He went after her but his legs ached so much he couldn't catch her. After two noisy circuits of the yard they stopped, she by the inn doorway, leaning back against the wall, chest heaving, he squatting down, elbows on knees, gasping with the soreness of his muscles.

"If I wasn't so stiff, you'd be a snowman by now."  
"Oh, very funny. Oh, har, har, har. Some prince you are. Noble? I don't think so."  
"Come on, princess, let's get you warm."  
"Not if it involves those freezing hands in my shirt you don't."  
"Hm, spoilsport."

She went to him.

"Come on, get up."

She held a hand out, balancing well back in case he pulled her. He gave her his hand and she hauled him up.

"Hm, I can feel I'm leaking. Oh, no. I need my bag and the latrine. Give me your water canteen as well. Hm, and your lantern. Wait here."

Pazu stood in the snow in the yard while she went to clean herself. Behind him he could hear the faint sound of voices and music from inside the inn. He walked a few steps to the yard entrance, the wooden gate. He looked out at the white hills, up at the sky. It was black, a solid base of snow cloud down from which the flakes whirled and swept and spiraled around in the wind. There seemed to be nothing here at all except this cross roads and this inn, nothing but the hills, the storm, the winter and the dark. And him. And her. Alone in a winter at a crossroads. A journey almost over. A journey just beginning. He sighed and his breath plumed out, smoky in the dark. He wanted to marry her. He wanted to be with her forever. He wanted to lay with her, love her and protect her always. No Muska, no men in suits would ever come to hurt her. He wanted to fly, to build beautiful flying machines. But here wasn't the right place. Her village, her farm would never see industry, never need science. Although a fearful part of him knew that one day science would come. Whether the Gondoans wanted it or not, men would bring it. It was in their nature, time, like a river, flowed on. Gondoa might resist. Ten years, fifty, a hundred, but science would come, if not from _Paetsu_, then from someone else. He would pass away, she would pass away, the yaoko and the farms would pass away, only airships and machines and science would go on. This rural way of life was changing, dying. This wasn't a country, it was a museum. He exhaled again. For now he had no answers, for now all he could do was go where she went, follow where she led. Soon he would lead. He wanted to. But first he had to know more about these people, this country, these customs. The dark stormy implacable night spoke to him with its breathing silence.

--I--  
---o-o-oOo-o-o---  
I I

She came crunching back across the dark snowy yard. She had dusted the snow off, rolled down her thick socks, brushed back her hair and wore a fresh blood mark bright on her forehead. The aviator's jacket was open at her throat, the collar still turned up. Her neck was white, there was bright pink colour in her cheeks and life, so much life, in her eyes. She smiled at him. He was lost, so hopelessly in love.

"Come here."

He reached for her and kissed her. Hugged her.

"_Yau al-dhu' ulve om_."

She answered, quietly, breathy and close.

"_Yau taemo-dhu,(1) Paetsu. _Stay with me, always_."  
_"I want to. I will."  
"Welcome to Gondoa."  
"Here?"  
"Yes. You're in Gondoa. Since the bridge at the head of the valley. The stream is the border. You're home."  
"Not quite yet. Your farm is my home."  
"Our farm."  
"_Yau taemo_,_(1)_ our farm."  
"Let's go inside. I'll show you some Gondoan hospitality. Are you ready for this?"  
"Yes."

She grinned at him,

"No you're not."

She pushed the door open and they were in a vestibule. Wooden racks lined the walls, in which were piled all kinds of footwear, heavy fur lined boots mostly. Numerous hooks held a forest of coats and animal furs. A second door was beyond and the sound of music and laughter was louder.

"Boots off. Everyone barefoot inside," she said, kicking her shoes off, pulling at socks.

He did the same. He pulled the heavy wet poncho off over his head and hung it up. She cast a smile over her shoulder and pushed the inner door open.

--I--  
---o-o-oOo-o-o---  
I I

The heat and sound smacked his face like a punch. The two of them stood, side by side inside the doorway. He looked at the room and she looked at him. It was a large room with a beamed ceiling and rugs covering the floor scattered around much like inside Shuna's tent. There were a few low tables towards the walls, some with shoulder high wooden partitions between them so that those seated would have some privacy but much of the room was an open space, a number of cushions scattered around. No chairs; at the tables were cushions also.

In the centre was a round stone hearth with a big fire. Over the fire was a set of cooking irons consisting of two or three large stew pots, an open grill and a big iron skillet. Food was cooking and two women seemed to be in charge here. The wall to the left was made up of a large wooden bar behind which two men and two more women were serving drinks from enormous barrels laid on their sides against the wall on a shelf behind them.

There was a door opposite that led in from the front of the building, no doubt via another boot vestibule. On the walls were hung rugs and strange abstract paintings done direct onto boards rather than canvas. Even some of the stones of the walls were painted with faces, trees, animals, birds and abstract shapes, whorls, spirals, circles, stars. The predominant colour was the same as Shuna's tent – rich warm colours, reds, yellows, russets, browns and oranges, like a forest in the autumn. Earth colours. Some of the tables had little pottery lamps on and on the walls were iron brackets holding torches. The room was hot, both in a visual sense and the temperature.

But the sound, it was the sound that took hold of Pazu's senses and bent them painfully like someone grabbing his arm and twisting it up behind his back.

The far right hand corner was filled with a low quadrant shaped wooden stage and on here a group of people were playing instruments. Pazu recognized a violin, a thing very much like a guitar or lute, several odd looking wind instruments, small knee drums that a young man was beating very fast with his fingertips and the balls of his palms and a number of people playing tiny pipes like recorders only smaller. These gave off a plaintive cry like birdsong. Towards this side of the fire people were mostly sitting and lounging about on cushions, but towards the stage, beyond the central fire, people were dancing, or rather they seemed to be in the advanced stage of some kind of seizure, leaping, jerking, twitching, swooping around like birds, jumping about like cats on a hot boiler house roof. And the noise! The band was loud and the dancers screeched and wailed like they were dying. Those not dancing shouted to each other in order to be heard.

Between the dance area and the central fireplace was a long wooden railing so that a dancer in an advanced stage of mental seizure couldn't accidentally hurl himself into the flames.

Everyone was barefoot. The clothing was very strange, a combination of styles he recognized – shirts and breeches and dresses on the girls but many people, men and women alike, wore only long loose shirts to just above the knee and went bare legged. The shirts were of bright colours but again tending towards earthy tones. Some had embroidery. All had tall stiff standing collars and open throats in a deep slash, some of them held closed by carved wooden clasps made up of animal designs. On many of the women these deep open collars showed part of their shape. Pazu had never seen clothing like it. Coming from a society where women were always covered up, it seemed rude to him. There was jewellery of wood, pottery, polished stone and bird feathers.

It was, quite frankly, bedlam. And it was only the early evening, late autumn and the sun had been down only two hours.

There was an odd smell in the room, a flowery, perfumed smell. Either something was being burned on the fire or people were smoking something that was not tobacco.

"Well?" Sheeta spoke close in his ear.  
"Wow!" Pazu had no other word to respond with.  
"Told you so."

She unbuttoned her jacket, took his hand and stepped forward, daintily threading her way through the seated and prone audience the band and dancers were attracting. She led him past the fire and turned left towards the bar. She wiggled through those in front of it. One of the men there saw her and at once came to her.

"Sheeta! My sweet princess! Welcome back!"  
"Hello Thoma! _Paetsu_, your money. A silver coin."

He took out the money and she gave it to the man, asking for something he didn't catch. He saw a space appear around Sheeta. Despite others waiting to buy drinks, as soon as they saw the blood spot above her eyes they politely and smilingly let her past. From the looks on their faces, men and women alike, they seemed delighted to have the chance to let her be served first, as though it were an honour. Sheeta came back carefully holding three big leather mugs together in her two hands, some coins gripped between her teeth. She waggled her head, indicating a direction to her right and Pazu went to the left hand end of the bar where there was a piece of empty floor. He put down his knapsack and her dress bag and took two of the drinks from her. The hard leather mugs were hot.

Sheeta found three cushions and kicked them into a pile in front of the bags Pazu had dropped by the wall. She sank down cross legged on one, Pazu did the same. She gave him the change, three copper coins he didn't recognize. If they were pennies then the three drinks had been only three pennies each. Half the price of a beer in the Ravine. Sheeta lifted a mug up and smiled.

"Your first Gondoan ale. Called _hahlle_. It's actually a kind of cider but has berries in it as well. In summer it's drunk cold but in winter it's served hot and fruit and spices are added to make _hus'hahl_ or hot ale, winter ale. And when we drink we say _pendraes!_ For heart, short for _good heart_, or _healthy life_, that sort of thing."

Pazu raised his mug. Sheeta clunked hers against his.

"_Pendraes!_"  
"_Pendraes!_"

He drank. Before she did he saw her pause and silently mouth a few words into the mug. Praying again. She had not done that before, only the two times in Shuna and Keya's _tumurh. _And then only because they invited her to. Why now? Sheeta took a large swallow, Pazu a more cautious sip. It was strong and fruity and sweet and warm. A chunk of pear floated in with the mouthful. He decided he liked it.

The music was sensational. The tunes were long, often ten or fifteen minutes each. After each one a couple of people would leave the stage and someone else would step up to play, bringing their own instruments so that the composition of the band changed constantly. No-one seemed to decide what to play, it seemed to be all improvisation. A fiddler or lute or recorder player would start up a melody and the others would gradually join in as the mood took them. But one thing the tunes had, they were all vibrant, happy and fast. Often beginning slowly and gaining momentum and volume as they went until the room was bouncing and the dancers were howling and leaping. Then a crescendo and silence while the dance floor cleared or people just collapsed. This was followed by a quiet passage with one or two or three instruments until others joined and the cycle was repeated.

Pazu could not keep still. He tapped his feet, tapped his hands on his knees and nodded his head. Aching limbs or not, the rhythm was completely infectious.

Sheeta shrugged off the heavy jacket. He looked at her and smiled, she grinned back, eyes sparkling.

"What do you think?"  
"It's… it's just. Amazing. I'm stunned. Where do they get the energy from?"  
"Happiness."  
"What?"  
"They are happy. They like music, they like to dance."  
"Well. You know what this reminds me of? In Slag Ravine there is a big ore crushing plant. A large machine has big heavy rollers that crush the rocks. It takes a very big steam engine to drive those rollers and downstairs in the boiler house for the engine are four big boilers, each with two fireboxes, one each end. Usually three men shovel coal into each firebox. As they work they sing and often a lad will play the fiddle to help them work. The heat, the music, the noise and the hot sweaty bodies. It reminds me of that. Only here people aren't working, but enjoying themselves. Sheeta I can _feel_ the atmosphere here, _feel_ the fun."  
"Good isn't it?"  
"Wonderful."

Shuna came over. He was without his thick animal pelt coat and boots and he had stripped off to a long brown shirt, belted loosely at the hips. He'd taken off his leg wrappings and the hide skirt. He wasn't carrying his weapons and looking around the room Pazu realized no-one else was, at least not openly. He wondered if the revolver in his knapsack was the only weapon in the room. Pazu picked up the third beer and handed it to Shuna. The big bearded man sat on the spare cushion and they all toasted and drank.

"Keya is not here," supplied Shuna, "I asked Thoma the owner. He was here at noon, ate quickly and went on north. He may choose to ride through the night and be home by morning."  
"Whatever he is going to do, he will have a whole day in which to do it before we arrive."  
"True, but _Paetsu_, I don't think he intends any mischief or surprises for you, he probably only wants to tell people and talk."  
"Don't worry, _Paetsu_, with me with us, he won't do anything, nor will anyone else," Sheeta suggested.  
"No, it's more a case of if I'm with you, no one will harm you, Sheeta. I'm not important, you're their princess."  
"Yes you are _Paetsu_, more than you know."  
"Do you know anyone here?" he asked  
"Only Thoma and his staff, they know me quite well. I recognize some of the musicians – some of them are itinerant players traveling from inn to inn. In return for playing they are given food and a bed. One or two others from nearby villages. No-one here is from our village."  
"Why is everyone here, in the middle of nowhere?"  
"Traveling home," Shuna answered, "for the _Suethelhin_, the winter solstice festival. Our biggest party. Shortest day of the year. We celebrate the death of the old year and the birth of the new. It lasts two days, a day of mourning and repentance, asking for forgiveness for past mistakes, remembering those who have died, followed by a day of celebration, of rebirth. We give gifts on solstice morning, usually symbols of long life or loyalty. _Suethelhin_ is when _Maerth-dhu_ argues with _Lucita _and is defeated. She sends him away with the bad scraps of the old year, our mistakes, our sins, the bad parts of those dead. She brings the new year, new life. And soon the winter ends and she brings the spring. Weddings are common on solstice dawn, as the sun comes up, a very symbolic time for us."  
"When is this?"  
"A month, just under a month away. Late in the eighth month. But will you excuse me lady, _Paetsu_? There is a man here I wish to speak with."

Shuna stood, bowed to them both, palms together and taking his ale, went across the room. The people beside them noticed the bow and looked at the two teenagers. Pazu thought of he and her, of marriage, of solstice dawn.

"Sheeta, there is something bothering me, about us."  
"Yes?"

She expected to hear more about soil and sky.

"What we did. In the cave. And last night. Was it the right thing to do? I mean shouldn't we be married first?"  
"Gondoan law does request that a man and a woman be pure until marriage, yes."  
"Oh, we did wrong."

He dropped his gaze from her face.

"No, _Paetsu_. People understand how young people feel. Young people in love make their own rules. The law requests it, prefers it, but it does not insist. What we did wasn't wrong. Don't you sit there getting a big lump of guilt on your back because of it."  
"But, I mean, surely with you being a princess, it should be done properly?"

She beamed at him, one of her prettiest smiles.

"You did do it properly."

He looked at her, saw the smile, and his face went red.

"You know that's not what I meant. As their ruler, you should enter marriage properly, yes?"  
"You have some funny ideas, _Paetsu_. Very old fashioned. I'm not their ruler. Well, technically I rule but these days the people govern themselves, the Grand Gathering looks after their welfare, makes the laws. The royal house is merely a title now. A few privileges, nothing more. I don't have hundreds of people fawning over me, asking me to make decisions on a dozen things a day. I walk up to the bar and buy my own ale. A lot of people here don't even recognize me. Some do, I can see them watching us, but most don't. I'm a farmer. Just a farmer."  
"We don't have to do anything special to get married?"  
"No. Just be in love I think, that's the main thing. And want to be in love for ever. Can you do that?"

He didn't answer, he merely smiled.

--I--  
---o-o-oOo-o-o---  
I I

The evening flew by, they sat, watched the crazy dancers, listened to the music. He got up and bought them food, again _bomao_ and a _mescah _sauce with green beans. Pazu saw some interesting looking red sausages on the grill and had one of those as well. They ate with fingers of _poto_ bread. The food was served in leather bowls and he found that this was so that if anything was dropped on the floor, it merely bounced and never broke, so bare feet didn't get cut. As a way of thanking Shuna, Pazu went to find him and buy him a meal. Shuna was at a table talking earnestly with four other men, all older, all large people and all with red beards. It seemed to be the custom for men to wear beards. When Pazu approached, the conversation at Shuna's table stopped, even though they were talking in _Oistrakh-Auera. _Pazu guessed they were talking about him. That didn't worry him, all of Sheeta's village would probably be talking about him this time tomorrow, and in a week no doubt most of Gondoa. What would happen would happen; he'd deal with it when it was time to deal with it. He and she had dealt with Muska, they weren't children any more.

They finished eating and talked. It was one of those conversations that you don't recall the details of because the content isn't important. They just talked about anything that came into their heads; ploughing, how to build wing-warping into a flying machine, the best way to milk a yaoko, their favourite colours, her favourite stories, how to drive a steam engine, what he could play on the trumpet, what she grew in her fields, how many fields she had, how to ride a horse, did he prefer boots or shoes or barefoot? how good a swimmer was he? Had she ever got drunk on ale? Which was her favourite season? The conversation simply bounced around the way conversations do between people who are at ease.

"Have you ever danced?"  
"Only a little, and not very well. A few times in the Red Cow."  
"Dance with me."

She stood up. Two ales each and the third on the way down, she was feeling happy, mellow, a little daring.

"Uh."  
"Oh, come on, no one will be watching. Look at them, all in their own crazy worlds."  
"I don't know how to. Very well."  
"I'll show you."  
"Hm… well…"

She leaned forward and pulled him up. She led him to the side of the dancing area near the front door where there was a little space. She held both his hands, stood facing him.

"This is an easy one. You do nothing at all with your hips and upper body, this is all with the legs and arms. Do this."

She made a forward and back quick stepping movement, lifting her knees in an exaggerated way, once, twice.

"Now you."

He did, it took a couple of attempts but he got it eventually.

"Now, this…"

She repeated the first two skipping moves then did a little skip to the side, and back. Again, then the other side, and back. He followed. And she showed him, again, and more. It was all in the legs, the upper body remained rigid. Relaxed but not in motion. Part way through the routine she spun round and said at this point he did too and they should dance with their backs pressed together. This took a few clumsy, fumbling, laughing attempts but he got it in the end. Then turn back and repeat. Finally lift the arms above the head and clap and repeat the whole thing with arms raised, clapping. Facing and then back to back. Easy.

"Alright? Ready? Let's try it right through."

They did and part way he kicked her and they fell apart laughing.

"No, no, again, you're nearly there. Good thing you have no boots on."

After a few practices to two different tunes he was more or less there. She pulled him among the dancers and somehow in the sweating heaving pile found them some space.

"Alright, I'll talk you through it! Skip, and skip, forward and back, and again… now to the left… and the right… and back… and repeat… skip… and skip! Now, turn! And press up against me. Good!"

He laughed, this was fun.

"And repeat with hands up!"

They went right through and he only messed up once and kicked her once.

"Lovely work! Now again and this time we do some interpretation."  
"Some what?"  
"You just dance, I improvise."

They repeated, the music was building now, louder, more jolly. When it came to the back to back part, she did something with her bottom, wiggling against him. He pressed back a little against her. It was nice. And in the lift arms part back to back she let hers drop and slid them around him, squeezing his sides as they moved.

"And now your turn. I'll do it normally, you make up some changes."

Back to back he pressed against her with his head, he leaned his head back and the side of his face brushed hers and then with arms raised he reached for her hands and held them briefly. They finished.

"Good, very good. That was good. Again?"  
"Yes!"  
"Enjoying it?"  
"Yes!"

They danced, through two or three tunes they repeated the dance, and each time she did something a little different, touching or moving away. On one of the back to back sections he tried the hands around her touch but put his arms too high and embarrassed himself by putting his hands where her front was sweetly shaped.

"Oh, sorry, sorry!"  
"No, that's fine. It's one of the moves you know, one of the more well known of the man's interpretations."  
"It is?"  
"This is _ulve dhansu_, the lovers dance by the way."  
"Oh?"  
"It's a story. Two people meet, they come forwards and back and side to side a little, getting to know one another slowly, then they argue and turn their backs on each other and after a time face again and become friends and finally make love."  
"Ah…"  
"The fun part is in making up different moves within the main theme. There are lots and lots but people make up new ones all the time. You touching my chest from behind is a well known one, so you are on safe ground. Come on, again!"

Pazu found himself getting into it more and more. He saw that other couples around them were seeing the dance they were doing and soon most of the dance area was doing the lovers dance. People left a space for them and some watched. Pazu found he didn't mind. He found there was one back to back move where if she bent her head right back at the same time he did, then with a little twist they could briefly kiss. Some of the times when her hands were on him, lightly holding or fluttering against him, he wanted the music and the dancers to go away, the place to be empty, and for the two of them to be alone, and naked, and falling to the carpets in front of the fire. He found himself filled with that warm eager feeling she had awoken in him before.

"That's good, lovely."  
"I've never done this before."  
"Dancing? Or loving?"  
"Both."  
"You're very good."  
"At which?"  
"Both, _Paetsu_, both."

And finally, he forgot his inhibitions, his gawky not-sure-ness, his embarrassment and self consciousness and simply let the music get hold of him and send him. They danced for a while and Pazu became one with the music, one with her, his hands on her, hers on him, feeling her near him filled him with raw life, with happiness, he was one with the spirit of life that filled this place. Then a slower tune began. She turned around and just stopped in front of him and put her hands on his shoulders.

"Ah, now this is easy. Hands on my waist, and just slowly flow around."

They did. It was lovely. She came closer and soon his arms were behind her holding her against him, she pressed up to him and her face was against his neck. They slowly moved around just drifting and holding. The tune became a mournful lament, just an achingly beautiful fiddle and pipes. A girl began to sing. Her voice was like rain, haunting and pure. Something inside Pazu just sighed. She was just so nice to hold, to be near. Her smell filled his senses. He wanted to hold her forever. If she was ever unhappy he would hold her, if she hurt he would hold her, if she was worried, scared, lonely, ill, cold, holding her was what he could do for her. It was such a simple thing, a hug, but with it a person could say so much. Two people could feed so much from each other, give to each other. Hugging filled a basic need. The warmth and closeness of another person. Then he found that they had drifted out of the crowd of dancers and were at the side of the room by the wall, and they had stopped moving. He didn't mind, this was even better. He held on and she ran her hands across his back, hugging and stroking at the same time. He just wrapped his arms across her slender back and hugged tightly, squeezing the two of them together.

"Don't go."  
"What?"  
"Sheeta, don't ever go. Don't ever leave me."  
"No."  
"I want you for ever. Be with me for ever."  
"Yes."  
"Until I die."  
"Yes. _Paetsu_, be my prince."  
"I will, I want to."  
"Hold me tighter. Don't let go."  
"No."  
"I love you so very much."  
"I love _you_. Soil and sky… they aren't important."  
"Oh?"  
"You're important."  
"Thank you."  
"I love you. Love you, love you. I love you so…"

He felt tears starting in his eyes. She hugged him so tight they almost became one. He moved his head back. She had the wet tracks of tears down her face. He bent his head down and kissed them, kissed each of them, tasted her salt, kissed her mouth.

They stayed together, hugging and kissing, neither wanted it to stop, this time of gentle peace, this time of just warm holding, of demonstrating their love, of feeling the other's love, neither wanted it to end.

There was a noise around them, a changed atmosphere in the room. Sheeta looked up, the moment was over, the mood changed, was lost. She looked at him and smiled, spoke one word:

"_Telle._"

--I--  
---o-o-oOo-o-o---  
I I

He looked. The two women who had been serving food had cleared away the cooking things and now brought a large brass pot the size of a small barrel into the centre of the room. It looked to Pazu a lot like a big brass railway locomotive headlamp except there was no glass lens and on the top a long flexible tube came out. Blue smoke gently curled out of several vent holes in the top.

The owner of the inn, Thoma, stepped up. He began speaking in Gondoan, Pazu picked up a few words but then quickly lost the thread of the speech. Sheeta filled in.

"The _telle _or community pipe is smoked after meals but only shared with guests, a family alone never smokes it. There are dried _timsu_ leaves inside. Women being senior smoke it first, the eldest woman with child, down to the youngest, then the eldest bleeding woman down to the youngest, then follows the eldest _menstruating_ woman down to the youngest. Finally, after all the females the men smoke, from eldest down to the youngest man who has returned from his _pead-lth-u'or. _Children don't smoke it. Lastly the host will finish it. Usually it is served when people are seated at table and the order of precedence is known, here with a mixed informal gathering it is a little different. People step forward when they think it is their place in the precedence and if two do so the host decides."  
"Ah. _Timsu_ leaves? They were in Shuna's tea weren't they?"  
"Yes, and the effects here are more potent, so you should not draw much smoke into your lungs, just a little. First time it might not agree with you, I wouldn't want you to be sick."  
"Are you sure about this? Some men in the Ravine smoke pipes and they stink. They cough badly too."  
"Oh, don't worry. This is nothing at all like common tobacco. It won't be bad for you at all. The _timsu_ plant, as I said before, is used in medicine and to heal wounds and all sorts of things. It also has a use in a potion of hot milk and powdered yaoko horn that brings fertility. Even, hm… our word is _ur-skur' ulve_. Heaven love, or fertile love. For you I suppose you might say an aphrodisiac."  
"A what?"  
"Have you not heard of an aphrodisiac?"  
"No. What is it?"  
"Hm, let me think. It's a medicine either a man or a woman can drink before they lay down together and it makes them stronger, makes them enjoy the lovemaking more."  
"Oh."

She watched his face while this sank in.

"I don't need that."

She giggled and squeezed him a quick hug. How could he be so cute, so sweet? He would sometimes say things without knowing it that made her feel so nice, made her toes curl. How grateful she was to the stone, that it had chosen so well.

"So. Watch."

Thoma finished speaking, the pipe was prepared and one of the cooking ladies held up the flexible tube. On the end of it was a brass mouthpiece. Thoma clapped his hands and two women stood up and came forward, both had big swelling bellies and the room applauded as though simply bearing a child deserved appreciation. The older of the two took the mouthpiece and drew in the smoke. She went back to her place, smiling. The second woman then inhaled.

"I am bleeding so I will be soon. You are probably one of the youngest men here, you will have to wait quite a while."

Again Thoma clapped and this time about six or seven women stood up. Pazu saw blood dots on their foreheads, he'd not noticed this, he wasn't used to looking for it. There was loud applause for these women too. Thoma made a careful judgment and let them each smoke in turn. Sheeta was the last, and when she stepped up to the pipe a hush went around the room, it was evident that now people knew who she was. Pazu was surprised, she drew in a large lungful, held it inside for twenty seconds before gently exhaling, blowing a smoke ring up to the ceiling. She came back through the seated crowd beaming.

Thoma looked around and was about to clap hands again when there was a commotion to Pazu and Sheeta's left by the stage. A very young girl stood up and shyly came forwards. She only looked to be eleven or twelve and wore a bright orange shirt and beads. When she came to the pipe a great cheer went up and several girls stood and hugged the child.

"Her first time. She has only just begun to bleed, it might even be her first period, oh, Pazu, isn't this lovely?"

He had to agree it was a celebration of womanhood he had never seen and never thought he would. The young girl tentatively took the pipe in her mouth and drew in just a little. She held the smoke in. Pazu thought she might cough or go green or vomit but she did none of these. She exhaled and a huge grin spread over her face. There was more clapping and everyone she walked past on her way back to the stage stood and patted her on the back or gave her a quick hug. Pazu realized she was the singer, the girl with the voice like rain who had sung when he and Sheeta had been holding each other.

"How do you feel?" he asked  
"Wonderful!" she was all smiles  
"What's it like?"  
"Not telling, you wait," and she grinned at him.

He saw that her pupils were dilated, making her eyes big and dark.

Working through the rest of the adults, women and men took a long time, there had to be a hundred people in the place. The _telle_ was recharged with leaves at one point. The women finished and then the men stepping forwards got younger and younger, in their twenties, in their late teens, in their mid teens. Pazu felt nervous. And then it stopped, no other young men were in the inn. It seemed he was the youngest man there who had returned from a year away. A sudden doubt went through him. He hadn't done the _pead-lth-u'or _the search for manhood, perhaps he wasn't allowed? Perhaps he was still a boy?

Thoma looked around the room,

"Anyone else? Any more men?"

Silence and then,

"Yes!"

Next to him Sheeta called out, and then a bombshell,

"_Paetsu Fuhmonhir_!"  
"Sheeta!"

Too late, she was pushing him forwards. The whole room turned to look.

"They're going to know who you are soon _Paetsu_, in a day or two, in a week, you might as well roll in like the thunder!" (2)

Pazu looked around the sea of faces. Across the room was Shuna. Pazu saw him stand up. The big man smiled and made a 'come forward' gesture with his hands. The four men with Shuna also stood, watching, but Pazu couldn't read their faces. Friend or foe? Sky or soil? The room was a blur, he swallowed and somehow took a step, then another, and a third. Behind him he heard her,

"Go on. I love you."

He moved slowly through the seated crowd. Around him whispering, low talking began, he heard her name mentioned and his own and other unknown mutterings. He reached the hearth. Thoma looked at him, a slight smile on his face.

"And you are?"  
"Pazu, of the Ravine, from Numenaor."

_Numenaor?_ The muttering voices explored this new information.

"Not from Gondoa, Pazu?"  
"No."  
"An outsider, eh?"  
"Perhaps not."  
"Oh, a man not of Gondoa and yet not an outsider, now _that_ is interesting."

Thoma smiled around the room. _Damn,_ thought Pazu, _I would have to stop at an inn run by a showman._

"And you are with Sheeta, is that right? _Lucita Toelle Ur Laputa_. Our princess? Her traveling _companion_?"

He emphasized the last word, giving it a meaning quite different to the word he used. It struck Pazu that many people had seen them in the lovers dance and perhaps kissing by the door, it was nothing to be ashamed of. He stood straighter, lifted his head and looked at Thoma.

"Yes. I am taking her _home_."

And he emphasized his last word also, so that it took on another meaning too.

"Ah, I see," the inn keeper said, a smile on his face, "Sheeta calls you by another name though. Perhaps not everyone here heard her clearly. What was it?"  
"_Paetsu Fuhmonhir_. I was lost, forgotten. I have come back."

He spoke clearly and loud, making sure no-one in the room was left in doubt. The murmuring around the room rose in volume. Thoma raised his arms for silence.

"Friends, now. I can hear some mutterings around me in my inn. I don't mind mutterings at all. I love to hear my inn full of mutterings. It means my cash drawer is full of pennies!"

There was a gentle ripple of laughter around the room. Yes, a showman indeed.

"But there are mutterings and mutterings if you get my meaning. Certain mutterings are like sweet music to my ears, like the falling of coins in my cash drawer. I like to hear those mutterings."

He now glared around the room, eye contact all the way round.

"But some kinds of mutterings are _not_ welcome in my inn. The kind of mutterings that speak of foreigners as though they are not wanted. The kind of mutterings that suggest people who are not of Gondoa should not smoke the _telle_. And especially those kinds of mutterings that tell me that the story of _Paztsu Fuhmonhir_, the forgotten prince, is not welcome here. Now if you want to mutter pleasantly and put pennies in my cash drawer, you are most welcome. If however you want to mutter about these kinds of things then there are two doors to this inn and you are free to leave by either of them. I can tell you that walking out of them _now_ is certainly preferable to leaving head first through one of my windows. And that _will_ happen later if such mutterings continue."

He paused and again looked around the room.

"Am I making myself as clear as _timsu_ smoke?"

A number of heads nodded around the room, many stayed silent. However, nobody got up and left. For him or against him, they all wanted to watch, to see what this stranger said and did.

"Sheeta. Come here my sweet."

She wove daintily through the seated guests.

"I see you have a friend now then."  
"Yes."  
"A special person it seems."  
"He is, very special."  
"Don't fret my sweet, I am not going to ask you how special. Special is all I need to know."

He turned back to the room,

"This man, this _Paztsu Fuhmonhir _is a special friend of Sheeta, our princess. For me that is enough, if it isn't enough for any of you mutterers then I'm telling you now it is a long walk tonight to the next inn. So you had better get going. And if you stay, no more muttering. Now then, Pazu or _Paetsu_ or _Paztsu_ or whoever you are, the question is, are you a man? Have you been away for a year?"  
"No," replied Pazu, "I have not," then, quite liking the idea of showmanship, and reaching for Sheeta's hand and giving it a squeeze, he said, "I have however been away for seven hundred years. And now I have returned."

The muttering in the room resumed, and louder, and this time there was a certain edge to it, _expectant_ was the word that popped into Pazu's head. Thoma wasn't going to be upstaged however,

"Well, if you think you are going to get seven hundred smokes of my _telle_ then you can go back to Numenaor and think again."

Laughter filled the room, although there was a forced edge to it from certain directions. He smiled kindly at Pazu, who replied,

"No. Just the one will be enough, _yau taemo. _However it will be my first smoke of the _telle _and I am honoured to do this the very first time in your inn, Thoma. You are a wise man and I thank you for your kind words tonight."  
"Well, in that case, the honour, Pazu, is all mine - please."

And he gestured to the big brass lamp of a pipe. Looking around the room once more, making sure he met their eyes, Pazu stepped forward. The woman gave him the mouthpiece and he slipped it between his lips.

_take a small amount in case it doesn't agree with you_

_it can't kill me, a twelve year old just inhaled_

_prince or mouse, which are you pazu?_

_prince. I'm a prince. and a man_

Pazu exhaled then inhaled through his mouth. He felt the smoke entering his lungs, it was smooth and cool and tasted like the smell of flowers, sweet, fragrant, a hint of mint leaves, nothing whatever like he'd imagined. He inhaled more, as deeply as he could, for several seconds. He took the mouthpiece from his lips, held his breath and handed it to the woman. He looked at her. She was beautiful. He'd not noticed before how lovely her hair was, how it shone, how the light ran down each strand and sparkled. Her eyes were big and clear and reddish brown. Beautiful eyes. He closed his eyes and let the smoke out through his nose. Its cool fragrant taste was delicious, it had a woody edge to it, earthy but it was sweet as well. It tasted like pancakes that had been slightly burned, their creamy flavour smoky, then basted with honey.

He opened his eyes. He was taller, at least six inches, taller than anyone in the room. And stronger. If any of those mutterers wanted to argue with Thoma, he'd help the inn keeper by throwing them through the windows, two at a time, one in each hand. He was strong, tall, light and could rule the world.

He turned. Thoma looked at him, one eyebrow raised and a look of slight surprise and concern on his face. He was saying something but, quite frankly, Pazu didn't care. Pazu didn't hear him. He wouldn't care if Thoma put his hands either side of Pazu's face and kissed him full on the lips. Pazu thought Thoma was one of the most handsome men he'd ever seen. A strange thought went through Pazu's mind.

_am I a girl? if I am I'll kiss him_

Without having to lift his feet or use any muscles, as though by magic, Pazu floated away from Thoma, past the sitting and kneeling guests back towards the space to the left of the bar where their bags were.

_bags? did we once have bags? why? how stupid bags are. what an idiotic invention. and anyway, who is 'we', is there two of me?_

His hand was outstretched and someone was holding it. Their hand was soft, like a cloud and warm, like the feel of the summer sun on his skin. And as they moved and he watched the back of this person some lines of poetry came into his head, which seemed a little strange since he'd never written a line of poetry in his entire life.

He looked at the people he was floating past, many were standing up and doing something odd with their hands, making them swell up bigger and go smaller again. They were moving them as though clapping but they couldn't be clapping because there was no sound, all they did was put them together make them big, bigger than their heads (and they were quite big too, their wide eyes and huge smiling mouths especially) then move them apart and they went smaller again, big, small, big, small, like lungs breathing.

He moved his head to concentrate on the person who held his hand. Was it a girl or a boy? Poetry person.

_dancing, you are dancing, you are each note  
__I chase you and you fly, you are each sky  
__we are two clouds, I flow with you  
__you are the wind, and we are love  
__we are forever, higher than the snow_

He hoped she was a girl, because his poem was about love, but to be honest, if poetry person with the beautiful long hair of flying reddish soil was a boy, that wouldn't be bad either.

Poetry person stopped moving and Pazu stopped too, they

_she, it's a she, I know it's a she because she's naked and I can see all of her, her beautiful shape, like smooth snow covered hills and fields, smooth and white and beautiful. I want to play in the snow, reach out and lift handfuls of it to my lips and taste it. where is sheeta? I want to roll in the snow with her_

sat down on a cushion that was like a big soft _reustaub. _Sheeta had arrived now, and poetry girl had gone somewhere. He sat with Sheeta. He was a little sad because he had already decided he wanted to marry poetry girl. But no matter, Sheeta was here instead. So he would marry her and happily ever after would they be. He looked at her. She was looking at him, her hands on his shoulders. She seemed to be talking but like Thoma she was rather stupidly not using sounds at all, just moving her mouth. That was no use. He tried to decide if she was happy or cross with the person she was talking to. Pazu turned his head to see who she was speaking so silently and beautifully with. No one was behind him, but himself. His face reflected in the polished wood of the bar smiled at him, eyes wide and dark and floaty. He thought he was beautiful. It was a pity he was himself, because had he not been, he would marry himself too.

Pazu turned back to Sheeta, she was still silently talking. He thought of one way to stop her and that was to put his mouth over hers. So he did. He moved his head forward (or perhaps it moved itself while Pazu stayed behind watching it from a few inches back), and he felt something wonderful. Just as his mouth met hers there was a breath of delicious wind, it pressed against his lips and drifted there like a spirit, her spirit, coming from her mouth. He wanted to taste that beautiful spirit, so he opened his mouth and put out his tongue to taste it.

Sheeta stopped speaking. Pazu came at her slowly but still fast enough to surprise her. He put his mouth to hers and in an instant had opened his, she shut up. She had to, he was in her mouth. He wasn't aggressive or pushing himself in he was just there, moving slightly against her teeth, requesting entry. She let him in. Her hands lay on his shoulders, his were limp in his lap. She knew people were still looking. As soon as Pazu had exhaled and turned round with that look of total happiness and wonder on his face and everyone cheered and whistled and clapped, she knew. Way too much, for a first inhale of the _telle_ they all knew that was way too much. More than some of them had ever done after several years. Sheeta enjoyed the _telle_, and she had been familiar with it for three years. She had taken a big breath of it because she was used to it and she guessed he had drawn in a similar amount to her. Or more. She was worried, the fool, she'd told him to just take a little. She thought he might pass out, but no, he calmly walked with her back to their cushions and bags and folded down cross legged facing her, a slight frown on his face as though a little puzzled.

"You… you idiot! _Taeg Paetsu_, I told you not to! Look at you. Oh, why are you so silly? Come on, wake up. Can you hear me? _Paetsu_, hello? He…"

And he shut off her sound with his mouth. And he kissed her. And he kissed like he never had before. Something wonderful was happening, he was firm and pushed into her, knowing where to go. He ran the tip of his tongue along the tip of hers, just easing so slightly, so gently. He was calm and sweet tasting and… lovely. Sheeta felt herself going, something was happening at once, down in her mid section, something was turning and whirling and warm. She let her hands slide off his shoulders and they plopped into his lap. They sat, touching only at the mouths. He inside her, boy inside girl, man inside woman, as it was meant to be, as it had been since man and woman had existed.

She had to pull away, this was too much, in too public a place, far too much. But she couldn't pull back, it was just too beautiful, too exciting, he was doing things to her he'd never done before. His tongue came in deeper and she began to gag with delight, making a funny noise. She felt her body begin to prepare itself, making heat, making wetness and opening up. No, this was not the place for this.

Somehow, with a super human effort she pulled back and put her hands back on his shoulders.

"_Paetsu, Paetsu_, please. Enough. No more. Lovely but no more."

She pulled him against her shoulder and he lifted his hands and lay them on her small waist and gently held her.

"Sheeta."  
"_Paetsu_, yes."  
"Thank you."  
"For what?"  
"Floating down to me, coming to me, choosing me."  
"That was the stone."  
"You are the stone. The stone is you. It's the same thing. Life inside life."  
"_Paetsu_, you inhaled far too much. I told you not to."  
"You are the stone, the stone is you. That's why it's alive, that's why it sang to me in Shuna's _tumurh_. You sang to me in the cave. The stone sang to me. It is you. In the forest it blew a strong breath over me. When you kiss I feel that same breath…"  
"_Paetsu_, shhh, now, shush. Calm down. Just be quiet."

It was late. After the _telle_ people drifted away into groups and corners. The musicians still played but slow, beautiful, sad mellow tunes. A few people sang, mostly girls and the songs were love songs. Gradually the room became calm, the singing ended and just a young man was left playing the violin. He was very good, the sound he made was like a language and it drifted over the people caressing them.

Thoma went around the room handing out sleeping mats and blankets. In places like this people would sleep on the floor where they lay, there was no privacy and no one expected any. In a community _tumurh_ there would be privacy for families and couples each at a point of the star, but in these wayside inns there were never private rooms, it was a cold country and heating all those fireplaces would be a waste, so Gondoan inns had just one huge fire that was kept banked up all night and people kept warm from their shared heat.

Sheeta saw that the evening was ending, that people were preparing to lay down. Thoma came over to her with two sets of bedding.

"How is he?"  
"Out I think, gone. He was talking some nonsense and went quiet. I think he's asleep."  
"Have you water?"  
"Yes."  
"He'll need it, his throat will be dry later. Here, take this bedding. I'll make sure you have enough space."  
"_Yau taemo_ Thoma."

A moment later Shuna came over.

"Is he alright?"  
"Yes, I think so, sleeping now."  
"That was some smoke. He might regret it later."  
"Probably."  
"Good night Lady, we start early, at first light. I'll come wake you. My friends will be riding with us. Is that acceptable to you?"  
"Good night Shuna, yes, and thank you."

The big man stepped away into the gloom of the room, the torches had been doused and just a few of the small tallow lamps and the red dull belly of the fire lit the space.

Sheeta uncoiled Pazu from her shoulder and lay him down. She put the two narrow straw pallets side by side and rolled him onto them. She doubled the two blankets up. It would be warm in here, so she lay him on his back and pulled off his breeches and shirt. She looked down at his undressed body, let herself see him. As she suspected, as happened a lot with men, the _timsu_ had had its usual effect. What a waste. He was big, bigger than she'd seen before. It was a well known effect of _timsu_ smoke, a man's body would push more blood than usual there, making him bigger. She smiled. Never mind, there would be other times. She pulled her dress over her head and pressing her skin to his, snuggled down against him. She checked herself. Good, the bleeding was almost over, almost nothing there now. Except of course the other delicious moisture, that he had caused. Being unable to resist she reached down and held him where he was hard and hot. Holding him with both hands, and cuddling close she let sleep come.

_- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -_

_2 – 4 April 2007_

_(1) Yau taemo-dhu : thank you very much. The giving of thanks can range from the formal to the completely informal. Yau taemo-dhu thank you very much. Yau-taemo thank you. Taemo thanks. Taem, tae and ta each more familiar and informal than 'thanks'. Children will even just raise a hand above their head and flick the nail of the forefinger against the pad of the thumb, making a 'T' sound, the most casual form of 'thank you'. The gesture this makes, a circle between thumb and finger opening to a 'U' shape is even drawn by children as a sign of friendship.  
(2) We might say "make a grand entrance" or "make a big impression". For Gondoans whose culture still leans heavily on the skies, Sheeta says this instead, suggesting that being obvious about it is like the rolling of thunder._

_For author notes about Chapter Forty, please see my forum (click on my pen name)_


	42. Chapter 41 : Homecoming

**Chapter Forty One - Homecoming  
**  
"How is your head?"  
"Not that bad. I feel as though it should be worse. Was I silly?"  
"You did draw in a lot of smoke for a first time. And say some strange things. You are a fool, _Paetsu_. I told you not to."  
"I don't remember very much. What a waste of my first time. I remember some nice things though."  
"What?"  
"Your face. Your face was there at one point. You were holding my hand I think? And… did you kiss me?"  
"You kissed me actually. It was very nice."  
"Oh. I hardly remember. What a pity. And the stone. What was happening with your stone?"  
"Nothing. I think you imagined it."  
"No, it wasn't last night. I remember now. In Shuna's _tumurh_. It did something funny, made a noise. But I remembered it last night."

Sheeta turned around in the saddle and looked at him, she frowned. It was all the answer he needed.

"You know what I'm talking about don't you? You heard it," he pressed the point.  
"I did. A humming noise. I don't think it's ever done that."  
"Never? In all the time you used it?"  
"I never used it until I met you."  
"What? Not once?"  
"No. We kept the stone hidden behind the mantel in our kitchen. Grand-mamma would sometimes take it out and show it to me when she was talking about the past, about the history and the spells but I never used it until I fell from the airship, and we fell off the bridge. Hm… then Tepis Fortress, when I used the spell of finding and it sent its beam to Laputa."  
"Was there a sound from it then?"  
"I don't remember. Too much was going on. We used it again in the throne room and I used it to heal my twisted ankle."  
"I used it in the forest…"  
"And I drew out the _lirhum_ spell from it in the library."  
"And finally in Shuna's _tumurh_. Eight times. Is that it?" Only ever eight times?"  
"As far as I remember. Grand-mamma may have used it, I just don't know."  
"In the forest, when you were… ill. It was very powerful then, a really strong wind. And very bright. I think the light from it then was brighter than in the throne room."  
"It was bright in the library too. I don't think you noticed because the room was so huge but I noticed."  
"In Shuna's _tumurh_ it was very bright. And it made a noise. What's happening to it?"  
"I don't know. Perhaps it gets stronger the closer it gets to Gondoa?"  
"Perhaps it gets stronger the more it's used."  
"Do you think so?"  
"Hm. I do. Sheeta, there was something about it when I used it to make the point to Keya. I was holding it in my hand and I felt like I was holding something alive. It was _eager_, it wanted to be used, as though its natural state was when it was creating magic. When it's just hung around your neck… it's like it's not happy."  
"That sounds creepy."  
"Yes. It felt creepy in my hand, it was vibrating, moving and the buzzing noise. I think we should stop using it. For as long as we can."  
"Yes."

They had risen in the dark, the inn was already bustling. A lot of people were leaving before dawn, making the most of the short day. They dressed (he pulled on clothes while struggling under the blankets – she simply stood up and put her dress on, nobody paid her unclothed body the slightest attention). Thoma provided a breakfast and that used up almost the last if their money. Sheeta's period was over now so when she went to wash she came back wearing the riding britches and her shirt and jacket and was able to ride astride Medisha. Again she sat on the saddle in front and used the reins, Pazu sat behind her on the big horse's wide rump. He groaned as soon as he mounted up, he knew this would kill his thigh muscles again. And again they shared the poncho. Pazu put his arms round her waist, rested his chin on her shoulder and felt his muscles complaining.

It was a beautiful day, cloudless, the sun low in the sky but bright, the sky a porcelain blue. It was very cold and the breath of the horses and yaoko plumed out along the road, like trains. The sun, swinging silently around behind them as they faced north, made their long shadow slide ahead of them, homewards. Shuna's four friends rode with them, Sheeta knew one of them slightly, she said he visited Shuna often and she'd seen him around the village a few times. She thought they were friendly, that Pazu needn't worry. The men had a spare horse so Shuna rode that and their two yaoko and Shuna's pair made up quite a train of boxes, sacks, _tumurh_ equipment and hair, the yaoko were just amazingly hairy Pazu thought. It hung down from their sides, their tails, their shoulders and their faces making them look like weary, slightly bored old men.

There were a lot of Gondoans on the road today, all heading home. They traveled in a caravan, yaoko and horses stretching for miles along the road. Riders would throw down handfuls of salted grit and as more and more riders each threw down a little the road gradually became clear of snow. The snow was deep now, two or three feet and Pazu wondered how the first people out on the road this morning had pushed through it. Pazu was amazed at how spectacular the countryside was. They were riding across moorland, high fells, a treeless bleak landscape the higher points of which were bare knuckles of rock. But covered in snow and with the bright sun gleaming from it

_a girl's body, the smooth white hills and valleys…_

_where on **earth** did that thought come from?_

it was beautiful. He could see for miles in the clear air. Looking down from the moors Pazu could see small villages in the valleys below. From time to time they would come to junctions in the track and two or three riders would turn off and descend from the spine of high land to their homes, shouted goodbyes from those still on the road would echo across the hills, arms waved tiny in the distance.

Pazu hugged Sheeta and kept quiet, concentrating on ignoring his painful muscles. He was thirsty and drank a lot of water. They stopped at midday with a large group of other travelers. Some men scraped a piece of ground clear of snow and dry timber carried with them was used to make a fire. Tea was brewed up and people stood around munching _charza_, the spicy red sausage Pazu had tried last night and cakes of cold compacted _bomao_. The sharing of food seemed to be a feature of traveling with these people. Each person brought something to the group and they all shared, even with the less fortunate travelers who had nothing.

They pressed on through the afternoon and towards dusk. They descended from the high ground and entered a region of woodland. It had snowed less here, there was perhaps only six inches on the ground and their path took them past farms of squat stone construction. Each farm had a chunky crenellated tower attached and Pazu asked if this was meant for defence, but Sheeta explained that it could be used as a refuge but most of the time it was a grain store. It had wooden floors inside and an internal hopper, it was a big drying bin. More and more travelers left the caravan until Shuna and the men turned off along a path by a small river, they in turn calling their goodbyes to those on the main road.

With the river on their left hand and woodland on their right on rising ground, and even less snow here in this valley, Pazu first saw the mountains. The river came around a long left hand bend past a hill and the jagged peaks were revealed beyond. The river emptied into a lake, the left side of which was an almost sheer wall of mountain rising up hundreds of feet. Beyond it were higher peaks stacked up one behind the other. To the right the lakeshore rose in a gentle slope and scattered up this slope were stone buildings among trees. Farms, houses, small workshops of the now familiar squat stone construction.

They were riding at the back of the group and Sheeta stopped Medisha. The five men drew ahead but she merely stayed still looking at the houses. The light was fading now, the sun had gone behind the hills.

"What is it?" Pazu asked.  
"Home," she said simply, in a low voice, sounding a little weary.  
"Which one?"  
"Here, this first one. The farm on the end of the village."

He looked. There was a big hall-like building of half stone and half timber construction, the gable end wall faced them. Above ground storey height the building was wooden. To the right a high stone wall enclosed a courtyard. Behind the hall was the usual sloping walled grain tower and to it's right behind the courtyard, a house of two storeys. From the chimney of the house a wisp of smoke issued.

"Someone is home," he said  
"Friends looking after it I expect, Shuna said they had."

Sheeta shook a little.

"Are you all right?"  
"Yes, just tired. Just glad to be home. It's been so long. I'm just so happy this is over. You know, there were a few times when I never thought I would see this again."

He hugged her tighter.

"Shush now, don't think about things like that, it's over. You're home."  
"You're home too, _Paetsu_."

She turned in the saddle and looked at him.

"Welcome home my lovely boy."  
"_Yau taemo, Lucita_. I want to live with you here."  
"That's lucky, because it's a long way back to the Ravine."  
"Don't want to go back."  
"Really? Your flying machine? Your trumpet? The doves?"  
"No. All behind me now. New story beginning now."  
"Thank you. I'll buy you a new trumpet soon. And we can raise doves."  
"I love you."  
"_Yau al-dhu' ulve om_."

She tilted her head back and he kissed her.

"Let's go and meet everyone."

She urged Medisha on at a trot and they caught up with Shuna's group. On their left hand a side lane turned off and led down to Sheeta's farm. The main track continued around the right side of the farmstead and into the village. Despite her good eyesight it was Pazu who saw it first. In the field in front of the farm, the sloping field that ran down to the lakeshore, he saw a silver triangle standing up. He looked at it, trying to work out what it was. He thought it might be a wind pump, some piece of farm machinery, but as they came up the rising ground and the convex slope of the field revealed more of the silver thing Pazu realized what it was. It was the tail fin of a flying machine. Gradually more of it came into view. The thing was quite small with high wings and a fuselage hung below that. Pazu had seen this before, in a field at the Ravine above the old mine workings and the caverns. A skidplane. Muska and his men used skidplanes. A cold hand gripped Pazu's heart, he felt not fear but anger. Cold furious anger. Here. How _dare _they come here, to her home. _Again_. Wasn't once enough?

"Sheeta, to our left. You see it?"

She was looking, she nodded. He spoke calmly.

"We're going into the village, stop in the centre with people nearby. We need to keep near people. You stay in the village and I'll come back here and deal with this."  
"No, I want to be with you," her voice wavered but she sounded resolute.  
"It's too dangerous, they'll have guns and I'm going to take mine."  
"No, _Paetsu_, no more fighting. We'll take Shuna and his friends with us, talk to them. Just no more shooting, please."  
"Alright but you stay away."  
"Absolutely not, we are together now, all the time, through everything. I'm coming with you. I'm sick and tired of this. I want to see it finished once and for all."  
"All right, but stay near me all the time. Do as I say."  
"Yes."

They rode on past, Pazu looking with one eye at the farm. Apart from the wisp of smoke and the silver skidplane in the snowy field there was no sign of activity. Sheeta rode up to Shuna, and Pazu told him there were unwanted visitors at her farm. Would he and his friends come with them when Pazu went to speak to them? The visitors carried guns. Shuna agreed they would come.

As they passed the farm and came into the village children came out of houses and women stood on door steps watching. The children ran up to Pazu and Sheeta's horse and scampered alongside. One little girl, no older than four called up,

"Sky or soil mister prince? Sky or soil?"

Pazu looked down at her, too young to even understand what she was saying. They stained their children with their political views young round here it seemed. Followed by the chirruping children the group rode into the centre of the village where a crowd was gathering in an open space. Shuna and his friends dismounted before a small hut. This building was tiny, no bigger than the upper, wooden storey of Pazu's old cabin at the Ravine. It had mud walls painted with whitewash and a thatched roof. It stood on a raised platform part of which extended in front of the hut and served as a large front porch. On this raised area was a fire. A silver haired elderly woman sat behind the fire, huddled in a shawl, her back bent and her face like leather.

Shuna and his four companions went down on one knee before her.

"Councillor Kamaesa, I return from Restormel with winter supplies for the village. I am also pleased to announce that on the road I met Princess Lucita. She was traveling home. She agreed to journey with us. I return her safely. And also," Shuna looked around at Pazu, "We bring someone else, someone who you will want to speak with."  
"We know," said the woman, her voice unusually strong and hearty for one so frail looking, "young Keya has already told us."

The woman looked up at Sheeta and Pazu, still on their horse. The two of them remained under the poncho and it was clear to everyone watching that Pazu had a close relationship with her. It wasn't just a case of _Paztsu Fuhmonhir_ returning, that would be shock enough, but for him to return in the arms of their princess was more shocking.

"Step forward Lucita, we wish to speak."

Pazu let her out of the poncho and lifted it off himself. A murmur went around the gathered villagers when they saw the rifle slung on his shoulder. Sheeta dismounted and approached the old woman. She did not bow, it was the old woman who lowered her head briefly and put her hands together.

"Welcome, lady, are you well?"  
"I am, very. And you, Councillor?"  
"As well as can be expected, given the season."  
"It is good to be home."  
"We are pleased to have you home, we wish to know all about your journey."  
"I wish to introduce my traveling companion to you, he is…"  
"We know who he is."

Sheeta looked a little annoyed.

"With respect, Councillor, I don't think you do."  
"Seven hundred years we have waited, we have watched this day approaching. We know who he is."  
"You may be surprised, Councillor."  
"We will be the judge of who is surprised."

Sheeta beckoned to Pazu, who dismounted as casually as he could. His leg muscles were killing him but he refused to let that show. Laying the poncho across the saddle, he adjusted his rifle and knapsack and strode forward. Should he bow? Sheeta hadn't. He decided to meet the woman half way, not kneeling, but, on the other hand, not doing nothing. He stopped before the platform and gave a slight nod of his head. The ancient lady returned his nod and to his surprised pressed her hands briefly together, the same greeting she had given Sheeta.

_she acknowledges me, half the battle in this village is won_

"Greetings, _Paztsu Fuhmonhir_, blood of _Phom_, it is an honour for us to welcome you, many years we have waited. We did not think it would be us who would utter these words, did not think it would be in our time that this day would be."  
"Councillor," Pazu merely nodded again very slightly, giving nothing away.  
"We have much to discuss _Fuhmonhir, _the Grand Gathering wishes to interview you. However this is not the time, you have visitors."  
"So I already see."  
"Well," she smiled at him, "one visitor, and four lap dogs. And… hm, he may or may not be here to speak with you, he may wish to speak with our lady."  
"He will speak with me or no one. And thank you, I understand. I shall go to speak to him now, if you would excuse me?"  
"That won't be necessary, we can talk afterwards. We will come."

She stood up. She was thin, but standing, her back was not bent. She leaned on a black stick that was twisted in a spiral shape and had a silver ball at the top. Her hand moved restlessly over the curve of the silver ball. Pazu looked at the stick, it seemed out of place in this deeply rural setting.

"Is that wise, Councillor?"

Pazu slipped the rifle from his shoulder. From his knapsack he took a clip of ammunition and checking it was full, slipped it into the weapon and clicked it home. He lifted the gun and slid back the bolt, chambering a round. He pointed the gun at the ground. The old lady watched him impassively.

"We don't believe that will be necessary."  
"I am not so sure, and it is always better to be safe, no?"  
"How will killing him make you safe? Do you think he is the last one?"

Now it was Pazu's turn to smile.

"I don't intend to kill him. But he may intend to kill me, or Sheeta. His kind carry guns, he will understand me better if I carry one."  
"All men who die by guns believe that, _Fuhmonhir_."

Pazu shouldered the rifle and also checked the revolver. Six bullets lived in it all the time now, the safety was on. He lifted the back of the aviator's jacket and tucked it behind him into his belt. He turned to go.

"Three in the house. One atop the grain tower. One in the courtyard."

He stopped and looked back at her, nodded his head.

"Thank you Councillor. Shuna, it will be dark soon, we'll move in the dark. Sheeta, how many ways in to your farm are there?"

Shuna watched this young man, merely a third of his years, but a man who could lead. Yes, here was a leader. Shuna gathered his four friends to him and Pazu told them what they were going to do.

--I--  
---o-o-oOo-o-o---  
I I

"Here they come. Hm, how sweet, and they've brought granny with them."

Otto watched from the shuttered window. Down the dark lane outside came the boy and the girl, with them was an old hag.

"She isn't granny, she's a Councillor. They are going to try the legal approach. Tell Reese to invite them in."

The thin man by the fireplace didn't get up, with a languid movement of his slim hand he merely flicked ash from the end of his cigarette onto the rug. The big man with the ginger mustache went to the door. Surun was getting very bored with running all over the continent after these two tiresome brats. _It ends tonight_, he thought. He reached inside his suit, took out his pistol and laid it on the table.

_the legal approach, hm? we'll see about that, councillor_

--I--  
---o-o-oOo-o-o---  
I I

Bhema and Torhpa, Khuaema and Peta moved silently through the snowy orchard and then slipped along by the base of the stone wall, the four brothers moving in pairs, hunched over. Their bows were shouldered, long knives drawn. They were below the tower here so had to keep tight against the stonework. Even though it was dark, the man atop the tower might have vision glasses. The small side gate at the back of the yaoko shed was right where Sheeta had said. It was never locked, she said, who could possibly want to sneak into any farmyard in Bruaendell? Bhema crouched at the small gate. Listening. Silence. He pushed the door open.

On top of the grain tower Monoghan stamped his feet and clapped his gloved hands together, damn it was bloody cold. How long were they going to wait here like idiots? It was dark now, surely the girl and boy wouldn't be coming home now, traveling this late in winter? They'd be at some damn inn somewhere in front of a roaring fire and drinking beer. He turned his collar up more and folded his arms across his chest trying to keep warm. What a shitty job this was turning out to be.

Bhema and Torhpa crouched low against the yaoko shed in the shadows cast by the tall grain tower to their left. Ahead of them they could see into the yard, see the main door of the house to their left beyond the tower. Khuaema went past them, tapping their shoulders, Peta followed. The two men went quickly to the tower and began to climb the outer ladder, the grain bin loading chute access ladder. Silently and quickly they climbed, knives held in their teeth. Behind Bhema, Torhpa had his bow ready, an arrow notched, his eyes sharp, watching the top of the tower, covering his two climbing brothers. If the man looked over and saw the two climbing men, he would shoot. Bhema looked up. The two dark shapes had reached the top. They paused, then the first one slipped over the crenellations and the second followed. Torhpa lowered his bow.

Monoghan slapped his hands against his sides trying to keep the circulation in his fingers going. There was something going on in the centre of the village, some singing or dancing. A fire had been lit. Were the girl and boy home? A celebration? He started to turn to go and tell Surun when something silver slid across his vision. A blade was suddenly at his throat and a weight was behind him, pressing against him. A foul animal like smell, like wet wool came to him.

"Move an inch and die," a low voice said.

A second man came in front of him.

"Arms out, nice and slow," second man said.

The silver blade touched the skin of his windpipe, pressed insistently in. Monoghan obediently opened his arms, making a cross. The second man unbuttoned his overcoat, and drew the pistol from his armpit holster. He then padded his hands down his body checking for other weapons. He found a second ammunition clip, and his folding knife.

"On your face!" stinking animal man hissed.

Monoghan lay down and his wrists were bound behind him, then his ankles, he was rolled over onto his back and his mouth was stuffed with cloth which was bound tightly about his face.

Bhema watched the door of the farmhouse. There was a dull _plop!_ next to him and a black pistol landed in the snow, a foot from his left arm. He looked up. His elder brother's head peeped over the tower wall, arm out, palm open. The man on the roof was taken care of. Bhema picked up the pistol carefully. It looked ugly and wicked. He put it in his hip pouch and went to the corner of the building, peered round. The other man was by the gateway. It was a thirty yard dead run to him. This would be difficult. He put away his knife, took the bow from his shoulder, bent and strung it and notched an arrow. The whole process from deciding to put away the knife took him only four seconds.

"One man by the gate, thirty yards. I'm going to rush him. Put your bow away and take your knife. If he goes to shout out hold the knife to his throat. _Paetsu_ doesn't want him killed but if you have to… do it..."

Two taps on his right shoulder. Torhpa had understood and was ready. Bhema watched the man, he would walk to the yaoko shed wall, kick his toes against it to give his feet some circulation then walk slowly across the yard past the gate. His back was mostly towards him during this walk. Then at the far side of the yard he would pause, kick his toes against the stonework and walk back. Bhema watched him do this three times. _A man of habit is a stupid man_ he thought. The man reached the shed again, kicked his toes, one, two then turned. Bhema moved.

The Gondoan sprinted at the man, he could hear the soft footfalls of Torhpa behind him. Half way to his quarry the man heard him and swung round, his eyes widened in surprise and his right hand darted into his coat, bringing out a pistol. Bhema raised his bow and at a dead run aimed and let fly. The arrow swept silently between the two men, joining the air separating them in a perfect line, man to man, fist to hand. Reese took out his pistol, raised it, slipped the safety off with a deft thumb move and was bringing it down level when the arrow from Bhema's bow completed its journey. The iron arrowhead touched the black leather glove of Reese's right hand and punched through the palm just ahead of the wrist, slicing through the tendons and exiting the back of his hand. Reese saw the red iron arrow point come out of the back of his hand and for a second didn't understand what it was. He tried to bring the gun on target and pull the trigger but his forefinger wouldn't move, the nerves from his wrist muscles to the finger muscle were cut. Then the pain hit him, he dropped the gun and a second man who moved out to the right of the man with the bow crashed into him almost simultaneously. He was thrown back against the yard wall and pain crashed out in his spine, the back of his skull and his hand all at the same time. As Reese's head bounced off the stone, Torhpa put his left hand forward, cupped the man's forehead in his palm and slammed the head back again. With a dull ugly wet smacking sound his head struck the wall again and Reese knew nothing more.

Bhema retrieved his arrow by standing on the man's wrist and pulling it out with a grinding noise. Torhpa bound his ankles and wrists and gagged him. As his brother worked Bhema lifted the heavy timber bolt beam from the yard gate and swung it open. Torhpa took the man's pistol. Silently the pair turned and running low, went to the house.

In the field behind the wall Shuna saw the gate open and lifted his dark arm against the white snow.

Pazu saw Shuna's signal and started down the road out of the cover of the last building of the village with Sheeta and Councillor Kamaesa. Otto, at the parlour window saw them and spoke his comment to Surun. Surun told Otto to get Reese to open the gate.

Khuaema and Peta lifted the hatch in the grain tower roof and went down the ladder. They moved down past the upper and lower drying bins to the intermediate walkway. Across this and to a small door. They opened it and followed the steps down into the equipment shed at the base of the tower. There were two doors here, one out into the yard between tower and yaoko shed, the other into the house. Khuaema listened at the house door which Sheeta said gave entry to the kitchen. It seemed quiet behind the door. There were three men in the house. It seemed likely that two would be in the main downstairs room and perhaps one more upstairs, but not knowing caused problems. There was no time to worry about the details, the plan ran on, timing was everything, the details would take care of themselves. He opened the door.

Otto opened the front door. _Hey, where was that lazy bastard Reese?_

Khuaema moved across the kitchen. A fire burned low in the grate but it was dying, no one had attended to it for at least an hour. There was a back door here on his left towards the garden and orchard and a door in front of him to the main room of the house. He and Peta stopped at this door, knives went away and bows came out, strung and narrows notched. They waited.

"Reese! Where the hell are you? Open the gate!" Otto frowned.

The gate was open. What the hell was Reese playing at? Had the sloppy son of a bitch gone to the plane? He stepped out of the house.

Something moved fast from his right side. An arm came up and slammed into his gut, the air flew out of his lungs and he coughed, lost his balance and went backwards. More force from the person to his right came against him, far too much, he was falling. Even as his gut emptied of air and he tried to suck in another breath, training kicked in and his hand went to his inner coat pocket, going for his gun. But he was falling now, going down, too much weight on his chest. His head tipped forward and he just had time to notice something big and dark coming at his face before he discovered it was a boot. _Two of them_, he had a second to think, _there were two of them_. The boot struck his nose and blood sprayed. Otto went down, flying backwards into the house.

His flying body hit the part open door and it banged wide. The big man struck the wooden boards and Bhema leapt over him, Torhpa put his boot on Otto's chest and the big ginger haired man saw a very strange thing. It was an arrowhead, black, dull iron and very pointed. It was aimed right between his eyes, a foot from his face.

"No," said a voice, the owner of the boot and the arrow and the bow in which it was notched, "your gun is not a good idea."

Bhema was in the room, a man in a chair by the fire was getting up. To Bhema's left was a staircase. He couldn't cover the man and the staircase at the same time. Bhema sidestepped right, narrowing the angle between the man and the stair, so he could cover both. He lifted his bow, the man by the fire reached for something on a table near him.

Peta heard the front door bang open. That was their cue. Khuaema nodded, kicked the kitchen door and Peta went through. The big man moved ahead, sweeping the room beyond with his bow, behind him his brother came in and turned right. A big room, a door to the right, Bhema in the doorway, a man near the fireplace. Everything happened very fast. The man by the fire wore a green suit and had long black hair, he was turning and looking at Bhema, reaching for something on a table. Peta swept his bow right and up, his brain and eyes made the decision in an instant. He stopped, aimed and let his right arm release the arrow.

In the big cowshed, among the stinking hairy cattle, Ryddyck wiped his rear with a palmful of hay, stood and began to pull up his trousers. He heard a sound, a door banging open.

Pazu, Sheeta and the Councillor reached the yard gateway, Shuna joined them. They went in. A man was lying just inside the gate against the wall. One of theirs, Pazu glanced at him and went past, he cradled the rifle in his hands. Sheeta looked. There was blood on the snow here. The man was… dead? Unconscious? No, not dead, he had been tied up. Pazu saw one of the four brothers in the house doorway, he was standing over something big and black. A body.

Surun turned and reached for his gun, the man came in the doorway, side stepping right over Otto who was no use to him now. Surun saw movement in the other direction. Shit, another of them had come in the kitchen. What the hell was Monoghan doing? His hand had almost reached his pistol when something very small and very fast came from the man by the kitchen door and streaked at the table. Surun's right hand touched the gun when the arrow passed right through the circle of the trigger guard and with a loud woody _thunk!_ nailed the pistol to the table. Surun grabbed the pistol and began to slide it up the arrow that pierced it. A second man was through the kitchen door. He strode up to Surun. The green suited man saw the arrow pointed at his face.

"Leave it or the second one goes between your eyes."

Ryddyck reached the cattle shed door. He looked through a crack in the wood. The boy! The little bastard who had shot Hempser! He was stepping into the house, the girl as well, behind him, and (bizarrely) an old lady with a stick. A big man in a hairy coat followed. It looked as much as anything like the family had come to tea. Ryddyck shook his head of that nonsense and took out his pistol. Pull back the slide, check the round in the chamber, safety off. He had a score to settle with that little shit of a boy.

For a moment nobody in the room moved. Then, Bhema, not needed to cover the green suited man, put his bow down and went to the door. He dragged the big ginger haired man into the room by his coat lapels and put him in a chair by the side wall opposite the fire. He opened his coat and found another gun, and a second knife.

"Sit." Said Khuaema to Surun. Surun sat back down in his chair. "Good dog," Khuaema smiled at him. Peta ripped his arrow from Sheeta's ruined elm table and took Surun's gun.

Torhpa came in, he went up the stairs, Peta followed him.

Pazu, the Councillor, Shuna and Sheeta entered. Pazu looked at Surun. Everyone in black overcoats except this man, who wore a green suit and didn't look like he lived much outdoors. His clothing, the red bow tie, his long black hair, the smart stand up collar shirt. There was something about him, something annoyingly familiar. The green suited man lifted a hand to his breast pocket. Khuaema moved close.

"My glasses. May I?"

Surun took his spectacles from his suit pocket and slipped them on. Then Pazu made the connection. Glasses. He looked quite a lot like Muska, slim, tall, pale skinned, eccentrically dressed, slightly effeminate.

"Do you know Colonel Muska?" Pazu asked  
"Now that is interesting," Surun replied, "it seems you know him."

Pazu raised his rifle, moved forward,

"Is that a yes or a no?"  
"Yes, I know the Colonel. You must be Pazu. I've been wanting to meet you, young man."  
"There was something I wanted to give Colonel Muska. But I never got the chance."

Pazu walked up to the seated Surun. He held the rifle in his left hand, his right became a fist.

"Indeed?" Surun asked.  
"Yes," Pazu replied, he drew his fist back and punched Surun on the jaw. The dark haired man flew backwards out of his chair, his glasses went flying.  
"_Paetsu_!" Sheeta shouted, "No more fighting!"

Pazu rubbed his knuckles.

"Get up," he was almost snarling, Sheeta had never seen him so angry, "your people came to this house once before, and kidnapped an innocent girl. Now you are back. How dare you enter my house. Get out!"

_My house?_ Councillor Kamaesa thought, _now that is a little premature. _

Surun stood, he wiggled his jawbone a little and put his spectacles back on. One lens was cracked. He dusted a mark from one lapel and pulled his suit sleeves down.

"On who's authority do you resist the Government of Numeaor? Your own government, Pazu."  
"You have no authority here, Muska's friend."  
"You are a Numenaorian citizen. I have authority over you."  
"In Numenaor, maybe. But not here and you have none over Sheeta. You are trespassing. I could shoot you and your government could do nothing."  
"Numenaor does not recognize Gondoa's government, or were you unaware of that? Shoot me and you will be a murderer, and more than just one skidplane will come back."  
"Wherever she lives, Sheeta deserves to be left in peace. Have you papers?"  
"I do not need papers for this, boy, something is going on here that is far more important that you can ever hope to understand."  
"Try me."  
"Laputa, young man, have you heard of it?"  
"Heard of it? I destroyed it. Next?"

Surun raised his eyebrows. Pazu went on.

"Right after your lunatic murderer of a friend Muska destroyed the Goliath, Sheeta and I destroyed Laputa, so that no other fools could ever use its weapons for their own purposes. Fools like you, fools like your government. Whatever you have come here for, if you are trying to do what Muska did, you've had a wasted journey."

Surun smiled, "You expect me to believe that? A little boy and a schoolgirl could destroy the fabled Laputa?"  
"The Edict of Hortensee."

Ryddyck carefully and quietly opened the cattle shed door. He moved across the yard and pressed his back to the house wall outside the open doorway, pistol gripped in both hands, muzzle held upright. He listened to the conversation within.

Everyone in the room looked to where the voice had come from.

"We knew this warren of a memory would be useful one day. The Edict of Hortensee. Six hundred and seventy years ago, the Royal House of Numes, the bloodline that came to rule as the Kings of Numenaor, recognized the autonomy of a tribe of people living in the mountains of the far north, the mountains of Gondoa. That tribe today is a nation, a nation recognized in law by the Government of Numenaor. We are not deceiving you, or dreaming. Look it up when you get home."

Councillor Kamaesa finished speaking. Torhpa and Peta came back down the stairs and moved to the centre of the room. There were more than enough men with weapons to deal with this.

"I don't need to speak to you any more," Pazu almost spat the words, "you have no authority here, you are nothing more than trespassers and if your government wants to interview Sheeta about any – incidents - you need permission from the Gondoan government, the Grand Gathering."  
"That is not strictly true," the Councillor spoke again, "on domestic affairs yes, the Gathering makes autonomous decisions. On foreign affairs the head of state guides the Gathering towards its acceptance or declination of a question."  
"Head of state? This tribe of animal herders has no head of state." Surun sneered at the old woman.  
"Oh, on the contrary. And we think you would be surprised. The Gondoan head of state is in this room."

Surun looked around, as did Pazu. Surun thought, _surely not the big bearded man? Who else was there, just four soldiers?_

From beside the door, a small voice spoke.

"That would be me. The person you have come to kidnap again I assume."

Surun looked at the girl. _Surely not? A queen, this young? Filthy from a journey? Dressed like a man? Perhaps anything was possible among farmers and savages_.

"That is correct, Mister Numenaorian Policeman, this is _Qu-elle Lucita Toelle Ur Laputa_, ruler of Gondoa. If you wish to kidnap her, you would need to have her permission first," the Councillor gave Surun a thin smile, "We do not think that is likely. And if under duress she agreed, we, the Grand Gathering, would not. We believe your business here is concluded. Leave now and Gondoa will not press for an apology from your government or seek damages. You also seem to have an injured man by the gate, he looks like he might soon bleed to death from that wound."

This was getting much too complicated, Surun was loosing the initiative here. All this talk of laws, and queens, he was an expert at quietly circumventing laws, but here with so many armed men it was getting difficult to progress this to a conclusion.

Ryddyck tilted his head forward. The girl was in the doorway, her back to him. This little shit of a boy had screwed him over at the train, time to get even. He moved.

The Councillor was speaking, "…leave. We will raise an official complaint to the King of Numenaor, there are hundreds of witnesses in this village who saw you arrive, we know you won't be coming back…"  
"Ah! _Paetsu_!"  
"Alright, weapons down, drop them!"

Everyone turned, a tall thin man was in the doorway, his arm around Sheeta's neck, pulling her head back, he held a pistol to her temple. Khuaema still held an arrow aimed at Surun, Bhema, with his, covered Otto. Pazu snap-moved. Raising his rifle he brought it to his eye and aimed it at the thin man's right eyeball. There he stopped. He and the thin man behind Sheeta stared at each other, a delicious bright line of recognition came from Pazu, through the iron sight of the rifle, along it's dull grey barrel and out to the eye of the man who held a gun to the head of the girl he loved, the girl he would, right now, instantly die for. He knew this man.

"Yes, remember me? You need a better aim, boy."  
"You shouldn't run so fast, running man."  
"Drop your gun. Or she dies."  
"Khuaema, Bhema, keep those two covered," Pazu's gaze never wavered, anger roared inside him.  
"_Paetsu_, please..." Sheeta whimpered.  
"I can see your trigger finger, boy. If it moves I will die, but this girl will die a second sooner. Now drop the gun."  
"If you shoot, all your friends die too."  
"You as well, boy, you as well. If she dies I know you will. Without her what are you, hm? Nothing. A man already dead. Do as I say, I'm getting bored with talking."  
"_Paetsu_, please… do as he says."  
"Sheeta, no. No more, I've had enough…"  
"I love you, put down your gun."

Her eyes were full of fear, and they were beautiful. Pazu wouldn't let this happen again, he had sworn to her that he wouldn't.

Something flashed to Pazu, something they had talked about before, he glanced down at Sheeta's front. The stone. It had bounced out from under her shirt when the thin man had grabbed her throat. It lay there on her breastbone and from it a small light was glowing, moving, a little turning thing. He looked up at her face, she had seen his look, she knew what he had seen. She closed her eyes, the metal against her head was hard and cold like ice. At any moment she might know nothing more. No healing spell could save her, whatever Pazu was thinking it couldn't be a healing spell, her death would be instant. What else?

It came to her. There was a way.

"Now, you're pissing me off, you little shit. When I get to zero, she will be dead. Three… two…"  
"_Huelth ur'Mashimi-dhu! Huelth ur'Mashimi-dhu!_" (1)  
"Shut up! Shut the hell up with your witch ranting! Hey! Shit!"

It happened very fast, much faster that it takes to describe it. The room became blue, blue tendrils of light grew from the stone flowing and twisting like the fronds of a beautiful plant. A warm breeze filled the room, the flames in the fireplace guttered and waned. The fingers of blue twisting light came whirling out of the stone, one shot up in a steep line and curved back down and struck the thin man's gun. Another leapt forwards and touched Pazu's rifle. A third twisted around above and behind the boy and darted down to the base of his spine. Others grew and curling up near the room's ceiling flew like beautiful snakes to land against several of the Gondoan men, one curled around the fireplace as though looking for something, it circled Surun, the black haired man watching it in fear and wonder, then the blue snake struck his chest and he yelped. Shouts of fear and confusion filled the room, almost everyone was watching the dancing snakes of light. Everyone except Councillor Kamaesa, she knew exactly what this was, she smiled,

_a very clever move our lady, a beautiful move, well done, the answer we would have given had we been able to_

Sheeta watched in surprise, she knew what she had told the stone to do, she was just amazed by the way it did it.

Ryddyck dropped his gun first. He did try to shoot it, to kill the girl but the trigger had swollen already and jammed against the frame, the trigger would not pull. Then it became too hot to hold. He cried out as his flesh sizzled. The gun fell to the floor. Pazu watched down the barrel of his rifle, seeing the blue line streak at him. He fired his rifle as it arrived but his gun jerked and leapt up on contact with the blue flame, the bullet went wide and high and smacked the stonework a few inches above Ryddyck's head, then, in an instant the gun barrel glowed red and the wooden stock began to char and blacken. Pazu shouted and hurled the hot rifle away. At once he reached round behind him and pulled the revolver from his belt, his fingers blistering from the heat of it, the skin of his back burning. All around the room men were fumbling in pouches as smoke wafted up from them.

Bhema, Peta and Torhpa threw pistols to the floor, Surun grabbed inside his jacket and pulled out a pocket watch and with a cry broke it from its chain and hurled it away, the thing was red hot. The blue dancing snakes went after the guns and the watch, they curled around and over them and licked them, then, diving down on them like hungry dogs they devoured them. The hot wind in the room rose, stronger and hotter as the flames fed on the guns and watch. Kamaesa kept his bow aimed at Surun, if the black haired man made a move to leave he would shoot him. Shuna strode forward to Sheeta and Ryddyck, the tall thin man in confusion and fear was dragging the girl backwards out of the door. Trying to get away from this sorcery, this crazyness. Sheeta sank her teeth into his forearm and he yelped. Shuna ran to him and striking out punched him as hard as he could. The man staggered backwards out into the snow and choking, clutching her windpipe, Sheeta went down, on her knees, coughing. Shuna went after Ryddyck. The thin man regained his balance and came at Shuna with his fists and feet, kicking high. Shuna ducked, the two met fought, a private whirlwind of snow surrounded them.

"Fire!" cried Peta, "the place will burn!"  
"Out!" the Councillor shouted, "get outside."

Bhema grabbed the bleeding Otto and dragged him out. Kamaesa spoke to Surun, encouraging him to leave quickly but do nothing stupid. The courtyard filled with people, some coughing, some banging hip pouches trying to put out the smoldering cloth. Bhema dropped Otto and ran at Ryddyck, sending the man flying. Shuna stepped over him, sword drawn.

"Enough!" he shouted.

Ryddyck agreed that it was enough, he lay still. Sheeta tried to get up but her throat hurt. Pazu was there, hands on her shoulders he picked her up, held her.

"Stop it, Paetsu, stop the spell!"  
"How?"  
"_Emisheh_! Shout _Emisheh_!"

She held the stone, bright and vibrating it was, the loud strong humming was growing in pitch, becoming a whine.

"_Emisheh_! _Emisheh_!"

Pazu put his hand on hers, held her hand, the roaring leaping buzzing stone between their palms. He had a sudden vision of it biting them.

"_Emisheh_! _Emisheh_!"

It stopped. Pazu and Sheeta however knew it had not wanted to stop, they knew that had either of them been alone the stone would have disobeyed the stop command. One of them alone was no longer enough to control the stone. It had taken both of them to do it. The blue light inside the house faded, the wind died away.

Inside the house Peta and Torhpa kicked the burning melting guns out of the door. The floor was alight. Bhema went back in grabbing a bucket and dumping snow where the blackened timbers threatened to blaze up. Outside in the yard a gun fired, then another.

"Out! Out of the yard!" Pazu shouted, "outside in the lane! The bullets are cooking, going off!"

The confused crowd went out through the yard gate, Shuna, Pazu and Kamaesa were enough to stop the men from resisting. Someone dragged the bleeding Reese out. People stood around listening to the gun shots. People were coming down the lane from the village, lots of people.

Surun looked around. It was over.

_  
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -_

_4 – 6 April 2007_

_(1) Literally "Fire over all machines", a spell to set fire to or melt by heat all mechanical applicances. Sheeta was a very clever girl to use this spell. Had she told the stone to set fire to all weapons then all the Gondoan men would have become disarmed as well. She could have commanded the spell to attack only guns but she wasn't sure that these men had no other types of weapon, she had walked into the room at the end of the fighting. Surun's pocketwatch, being a machine, was attacked also. Had Pazu and Sheeta not stopped the spell it would have spread, widening it's circle, looking for more machinery to destroy. The skidplane would have been next, then any mechanical machinery in the village. And so on._

_For author notes about Chapter Forty One, please see my forum (click on my pen name)_


	43. Chapter 42 : Newcomer

**Chapter Forty Two – Newcomer  
**

"Come back to bed."  
"I can't sleep."  
"What is it?"  
"Tomorrow."  
"Everything will be fine. It's not a trial."  
"It just seems a lot of nosy people asking a lot of nosy questions. Why can't they just believe you?"  
"I'm sure they will, and Shuna, and Councillor Kamaesa, Bhema and his brothers. Lots of testimony."  
"Hm."  
"Please? Bed. You make me nervous."  
"In a while. I think I'll walk. You sleep."

She sighed, this was the fifth night like this, the fifth time he'd hardly slept, had dressed and gone out in the snowy dark, in the blue moonlight, walking, thinking, worried. Four of those times she had come to him, soft and tender and wanting them to be as one. And four times he had gently said no. That irked him too, hurting her was something he hated, but right now, with these thoughts buzzing in his head, with these worries, he couldn't rest, couldn't relax. Couldn't love.

He stood near the shore on the wet soil of the lakeside field watching the moons sailing over the white hills and black water. Although he was cold he didn't want to return to bed and sleep, he wanted to think. Think about tomorrow. The date of the meeting with the Grand Gathering had been set a week ago, in Penraeth. It was a big town but not a city, Gondoa had no great cities, no industrial areas. Penraeth was the capital. It would take most of tomorrow to ride there and the meeting was the day after that. The Gathering was to decide who he was, they would interview him, and other witnesses and look up things in their big dusty books then debate the issue. That might take a day or two days or it might take a week, he didn't know how long.

He'd thought long and hard about what he would say. He knew they would get it out of him eventually, his and Sheeta's story, they would find out about Laputa and Muska and Goliath. So, shivering in the blue night, in the snow, that last night before he traveled, he decided. The truth. Complete and without dressing it up in fancy language, exactly as it happened. His childhood too. His father's discovery of Laputa and his dream as well. If they asked he would tell them that. He somehow thought the Grand Gathering wouldn't be stupid, made up of dribbling easily fooled old men. If Councillor Kamaesa was an example then no way could he fool a dozen of so of these people.

It made him cross because he wanted, for now, to just be home. For the two of them to be simple people and put aside all this for a while. The solstice was in a few weeks, the _Suethelhin. _He was looking forward to it, it would mean he could dance with her again. Just a simple thing, but these days simple things were what he craved.

He had fallen in love with the farm, her simple farm, the very first day. Not just where it was on the edge of the village with the sloping fields next to the lake and the woodland above it, and the mountains behind, but the house too. The garden and apple orchard to the rear, the big yaoko shed with it's hairy steaming occupants, the chicken coop, and the small cheerful house of stout warm Gondoan stone with its steep slate roof. Downstairs at one end was the main room the width of the house, windows in two opposite walls, one facing the yard, one the garden. Through a door near the garden end was the kitchen, Sheeta's room he came to know it as, where she would cook the most amazing things, stews, pies, fish from the lake, _mescah_ and _bomao, charza _and _eothren_. And she cooked meat for him even though she wouldn't touch it. The last quarter of the downstairs space between the kitchen and the yard, under the stairs, was the scullery where she did her laundry and bathed. Pazu, inspired by the bath house in the inn in Restormel decided he would build her a fixed bath, arrange drainage and put in a boiler here. A gift to her, he said, the Woman Who Loved to Bathe.

Upstairs the stair at the yard side of the house opened onto a landing which ran back above the yard. There were two rooms up here, a smaller spare room that she used as her sewing room because the north facing window gave good light, and her room, a big room above the downstairs parlour. It was a lovely room, the ceiling beams, whitewashed walls, bright rugs on the polished wooden floor and two large windows made it light and airy. Her bed had posts at the corners and heavy drapes on the top and the rich autumnal colours in the coverlet that Gondoans favoured. Inside the bed, with the drapes dropped down and incense burning in the room, it reminded him a little of Shuna's _tumurh_. But he hadn't begun to relax here yet, in this community, and especially in that bed.

It was her bedroom, her bed, not theirs. He couldn't yet feel that it was their bed. Not yet. So for this last week all they had done was sleep in it. Kiss goodnight, hold each other. And sleep. Nothing more. He wasn't ready. He still felt like an outsider, an intruder. A stranger in bed with their princess. It wasn't right. He would lie awake at night and feel he could reach his hand out into the village, grasp hold of their mutterings, their discontent, their spiteful rumouring and arguing about him.

The confrontation the night they had arrived had shown the whole village who he was and what he was capable of doing. He just had no idea if he was accepted. That night they had stayed at Shuna's house. Sheeta's farm was a mess, the place stank of smoke and while Surun and his men were still in the village Councillor Kamaesa insisted it was not wise that they be alone. So for the sake of safety they stayed in a house with another family.

The next day a group of men escorted Surun's party back to Restormel, to an aerodrome near one of the northern ports. The Councillor impounded the skidplane and Shuna, quickly taking on the de facto role of her right hand man, went through it, retrieving some interesting paperwork. Councillor Kamaesa, over the following days discussed the incident at the Sheeta farm with the Grand Gathering and they agreed to lodge a formal complaint to the Numenaorian government. By this means the affair was made public and the Agency would not dare interfere again with the Gondoan royal family. They also decreed that _Paztsu Fuhmonhir_ should attend upon them and prove himself.

And since then he hadn't been able to relax.

But simple things were there to distract him from these worries. Sheeta was there to distract him, make it easier to bear. The morning after they arrived they went to the farm. Pazu lifted the worst of the burnt floor boards from the main room and replaced them, adding varnish. He went to take the elm table to a carpenter for a new top to be made for it but Sheeta stopped him. She wanted it to remain with its damaged surface as a reminder of that night. She wanted their children, if there should ever be any, to know the story of how power and lust for influence can make men go bad. So Pazu rubbed the table top down, removed the worst of the splinters and polished it.

She opened the windows to remove the smell, made up the bed with clean linen and later went out to pick displays of evergreens and berries to hang in the rooms to cheer the place up. He lit roaring fires in the main room and kitchen and brought in more firewood. In the afternoon she took him out and walked him around her fields showing him what she grew in each, which would lie fallow next spring, where her yaoko grazed and where the wind pump was. He looked at the pump. He thought he could get it working more efficiently with a smaller bore pipe and better bearings on the spindle behind the blades. They talked about small things, inconsequential things, began to plan for a future, and he loved her for that, for taking his mind off what worried him.

But still he could not be at ease. Not completely.

--I--  
---o-o-oOo-o-o---  
I I

Imthumi (she didn't pronounce the 'h'), or just "Immy" as she liked to call her, was Sheeta's horse, a four year mare of sixteen hands and jet black apart from a diamond on her forehead and one white sock. Immy was strong enough she said, she would carry them both to Penraeth. They rode with Shuna, Shuna's youngest boy Teba who was nine and wanted to see the big city for the first time, and Councillor Kamaesa who rode in a litter on top of a big fat yaoko she called Norris. The Councillor brought two girl servants with her who also rode ponies and together they made quite a convoy. Two villages up the valley they met with Bhema and his brothers and the eleven of them journeyed to the town.

The Councillor had her own quarters but the rest of them lodged at an inn at the Gathering's expense. That night they talked, ate, drank and danced. Except for Pazu, he didn't dance, he didn't drink much and he hardly talked at all. In the middle of the evening he got up from the cushions and went out into the street. It was busy outside, in the archways under the shops stall holders sold hot food even late into the night and travelers coming into the town would buy from them and use them to pick up on the gossip. Pazu walked down the muddy road to a bridge over a small river and looked at the black water, the reflected clouds sailing deep within it.

A hand came onto his shoulder. He knew who it was.

"Tomorrow, Sheeta, when they ask you, just tell them the truth."  
"Yes."  
"No more made up stories."  
"No."  
"If they ask, I'm going to tell them everything."  
"I think that's best."  
"If we are truthful, there is no chance of our stories not matching. I can't go through all that again."  
"I understand."  
"When we were hiding and running across Marinaer it was different. Here people are going to judge me, I don't want them thinking _Paetsu Fuhmonhir_ is a liar. Everything would go wrong for me and us after that, if Gondoa found out _Phom's_ descendent had come back after seven hundred years and I told lies..."  
"You're right. _Paetsu_?"

He turned from the dark water to her dark eyes.

"Come back inside. You don't have to join in the party, just sit with me."

So he did. And she just stayed near him and held his hand, not talking, just holding. He was grateful. Just being near her helped. He sat and worried about tomorrow.

_- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -_

_8 – 9 April 2007_

_For author notes about Chapter Forty Two, please see my forum (click on my pen name)_


	44. Chapter 43 : Gathering

**Chapter Forty Three – Gathering**

"Please try and relax. This is not a criminal hearing and you are not an accused. All we wish to establish are the facts. That is all. You need only answer our questions truthfully."  
"I understand."  
"What is your name?"

So it began. A day of questions. A day that had no end. It might not have been an investigation into a crime, and he might not have been accused of anything. But at times it felt like it. He had no doubt in his mind that here, facing him were a lot of people who would rather he had not come to Gondoa, would rather he had not met Sheeta, had not brought her home, had not made such an obvious homecoming at Thoma's inn on the border, and who had not had that incident with Surun on the evening he arrived in Bruaendell. People here clearly wished he never existed. Soil and Sky. _Suul ue skur_. Soil. It was obvious that here, in the Gondoan Government he had enemies. People who despised him simply for his potential. Not even for who he was, but for what he might do, might be, merely for an idea he represented.

The Sky was here too, of course. Many Councillors responded positively to him and spoke out in his defence, and yet others were neutral. But many of those present seemed to have made up their minds beforehand, one way or the other, and that bothered him. If they came into this room carrying the baggage of their preconceptions, wasn't this just a waste of time? This days questioning for the first time exposed him to the depth of feeling that split this people in two. Shuna and Sheeta had mentioned it, had warned him. But nothing prepared him for the bitterness and the sheer implacable hatred that dwelt in some hearts.

The Gathering was not what he had expected. He had counted on a dozen, perhaps two dozen people, old men who might meet him in some modest building, a hall, a place like a library or the small worker's meeting chamber they had in the Ravine. No, the Gondoan Parlement was a building designed to impress. To intimidate. He hadn't seen any other buildings like it, even the big communal hall in Bruaendell was a cozy mundane place by comparison. The Parlement building was of the usual yellow stone, and eight sided. To one side was a range of annex buildings for administration but the debating chamber was a big octagonal structure, the outside had high lancet windows and between these, on the angles separating adjoining faces were buttresses, the upper points of which were extended upwards into slender spires adorned with gargoyles, animals, green men and other fantastic carvings. Gothic in style and enormous in proportion. The steeply pitched roof was made up of eight triangles that met at the central dome, a small pepper pot type edifice in which hung the Decision Bell (it had another name, he learned later: some derogatorily referred to it as the Division Bell). This was rung when the debate was ended; a peal of lesser bells rang out as a warning and then there was a minute's silence followed by nine rings for agreement and thirteen for disagreement. The subject of the debate was always posted up on the main exterior door. And afterwards, its conclusions and explanatory notes. He had seen the paper nailed up this morning when he had arrived.

WE HERE GATHERED BELIEVE THE MAN KNOWN AS PAZU OF NUMENAOR  
IS A TRUE DESCENDANT OF PRINCE PHOM OF LATORMOLO,  
BEARING HIS BLOOD AND HAVING HIS ROYAL STATUS, RIGHTS AND PRIVILEDGES.

It was a lot to ask of a sixteen year old miner.

--I--  
---o-o-oOo-o-o---  
I I

Inside, the chamber was even more intimidating. Tiers of wooden bench seats ran around six of the sides leaving two opposite sides of the room empty. Four tiers of benches narrowing towards the windows, each side capable of seating fifty people. Three hundred seats. More than ten times the number of Councillors Pazu had expected, in an atmosphere ten times as intimidating. On one side of the chamber was the enormous double doorway, where the councillors filed in and out, as did witnesses. Opposite was the Chamberlain's throne, a raised wooden seat in something like a pulpit. To either side was a small seat with a desk where the two stenographer secretaries sat. In the centre of the floor on a raised dais sat the Bellringer, the name of the person who rang the Decision Bell. Ringing the bell, however, was the least of the duties they performed. In essence the Bellringer was a speaker, an arbitrator and an advisor. Arguably the most powerful person in the chamber, more powerful in some ways than the Chamberlain, if they could manoeuvre and massage the debate around to their line of thinking.

Above the Councillors benches was a wooden platform extending out from the walls half way up the lancet windows. This platform was supported by eight stone columns and was the public gallery, able to seat five hundred. For this hearing however, it remained empty.

Pazu stood between the Bellringer and the Chamberlain. He was provided with a seat but chose to stand. When he thought hard and talked he liked to walk about. He had done this even as a child, even when working at some difficult design problem on his flying machine he liked to wander around the room, or outside on the grass. So here, in this chamber he chose to stand.

The other thing that surprised him was that the Councillors were not as ancient as he expected. In their fifties and sixties and a few older, but not ancient dribbling old crones. No, these were people to be wary of. And, as he partly expected, the clear majority of them were women, perhaps two thirds. The Chamberlain was a woman, a large florid lady with spectacles and black hair worn in a gigantic bun. It was a huge improbable construction, like she had a big black bucket on her head. The Bellringer too was a lady. This person he was less fearful of, because he knew her. It was Councillor Kamaesa.

Pazu didn't know if Kamaesa was for sky or soil, but he knew she was a shrewd quick witted woman and he was happier having her near him. She was a familiar face in a room of strangers. He felt he would soon find out if she were friend or foe.

At first the questions were simple.

"Your age?"  
"Where do you live?"  
"Who are your parents?"  
"Anyone alive in your family?"  
"Do you recall any other family members when you were young?"  
"What education did you have?"  
"What work do you do?"  
"Tell us about life in the Ravine."  
"Before you met Princess Lucita, had you ever had any unusual experiences?"

He asked what sort of experiences and was met with the stony question "Any?" and he responded, "No."

"Tell us about your father."

That required a long answer, it took him twenty minutes to spew out to them all on that subject. And of course, as he knew it would, it ended with him telling them about his fathers flying, his sighting of Laputa and his dream to go back there. They asked about the photograph and made a resolution to send an official to the Ravine to collect it, and Pazu's father's journals. Pazu wasn't asked about this, it was decided without his permission. That annoyed him. And then,

"How did you meet Princess Lucita?"  
"After you met, what happened then?"  
"Tell us everything about the air pirate gang."  
"Do you know who this Colonel Muska was?"

He and Sheeta had talked a lot about Muska. She had told him he was a Laputan Prince. This news caused less of a stir than he expected. Had they known of Muska? They must have. And if that were true then had they known what Muska intended to do? Pazu didn't let his mind wander too far down that line of thinking. The possible answers disturbed him greatly.

"After you were sent away from Tepis Fortress, how did you feel?"  
"Why did you go back?"  
"How did the Princess react to your rescuing her?"

Too much, too personal.

"Why do you ask me that?" he asked.  
"Just answer the question."  
"No. Ask me another question," Pazu was furious, how dare they pry?  
"You will answer the Gatherings questions."

He drew a deep breath.

"I am happy to answer questions that are relevant to who I am. I am not going to answer questions that bear on personal matters, on my privacy. On Sheeta's privacy. Ask another question."  
"You will answer this one!"

He went to the chair, sat and folded his arms and remained silent. The man speaking with him stood up.

"You _will_ answer the question!"  
"We are here to determine who I am, yes?"  
"We are asking the questions!"  
"No, we are here to determine who I am. If you wish to do that, you will answer my questions as well," Pazu was angry.  
"Just answer the question!"  
"Sheeta's feelings are none of your business, so shut your mouth you nosy old man!"

Pazu stood up and went to walk out of the chamber. Before he got to the door a voice called out. He knew this voice. Kamaesa.

"I move that we drop that line of questioning. The emotions of the Princess Lucita are not relevant to determining the identity of Mister Pazu."

There followed a brief discussion. Then:

"Mister Pazu, please return to your seat. You need not answer that question."

Pazu returned. When he got to his seat he remained standing. He stared at the man who had asked the insulting question. The old round faced bald man stared back. A man of the soil, no doubt, annoyed that his princess had been close to this upstart.

"How did you feel about serving on a pirate air vessel?"  
"What do you think Princess Lucita's feelings were about this?"

He hesitated again, but chose to answer. He realized that other than finding being a pirate distasteful, he had no idea how she felt. Then he knew something else. These questions were not about fact gathering, these people were building up a picture of their relationship. Clearly that was important to them. He wondered why.

"What tasks were you given on the pirate air vessel?"  
"Describe the voyage to Laputa."  
"Describe Goliath."  
"What course did you fly?"  
"At dawn when you saw the storm, tell us what happened next."

That question led to Pazu's longest answer. He found himself describing the great cloud, the separation from the Tiger Moth and their flight to Laputa, the strange hallucinatory flight inside the dragon storm when he had seen his father again and all that occurred on Laputa right through to the end when they found the glider and left. He spoke for over two hours. Part way through Kamaesa signaled for a servant to bring him water. He nodded to her in thanks. Apart from his strong voice and the scratching of the stenographer's pens, the chamber remained silent throughout. _This_ was what they wanted to hear.

When he finished they moved to adjourn for lunch, reconvening in two hours.

--I--  
---o-o-oOo-o-o---  
I I

Afterwards, they carried on:

"Describe Laputa."  
"Describe the mechanical man."  
"Describe the tree. The grave. The plants. The animals. Describe inside it."

It went on, and on. More than he had expected. He had to dig down deep inside and bring up details and memories, and the Gathering seemed especially interested in the firing of the Great Weapon as they called it, and the destruction of Goliath, about which he could tell them little since, by this time, he had been inside the inverted dome of Laputa.

As to their questions about the death of Muska he kept his answers truthful but short. There was little to say now. However the spell of destruction seemed to bring the chamber awake, they wanted to know about this in great detail. The word of power itself, its effects, a detailed description of the spell in action seemed important, even though he could give little detail due to being knocked unconscious by the blast. The why of the act especially. Why had they invoked it, was a repeated query. His response, that to not do so would have been to give control of the Great Weapon over to the hands of a man clearly insane, seemed unsatisfactory to some of the Councillors.

Again Pazu became cross with them and began to respond repetitively at which point Kamaesa again moved that they should press on.

Large oil lamps were lit in the chamber as the daylight began to fail and the story moved on to his arrival in Marinaer and his journey to Gondoa. Here Pazu made a definite decision to limit what he told them. He was free with his answers about his movements and the war, but he avoided expanding at all on innocent people such as Tanner, Morwen and Hamar who he refused point blank to name. He also avoided all detail about his relationship with Sheeta. As far as he was concerned this was none of their business and he told them this to their faces more than once. On two occasions he argued again with the rude Councillor who had stuck his nose into his private affairs before. With some difficulty Kamaesa moved the interview on.

_they want to know about her and me. why? why is our relationship of interest? I'm missing something here. _

Pazu simply omitted to tell them anything about Sheeta being shot, the healing spell he invoked and their week in the cave and the discovery of the library. It seemed to him important to keep the library hidden from them.

They were very interested, however, to hear about the use of the stone in front of Shuna and Keya, very interested indeed. Those two or three minutes, it turned out, quickly became the focus of their whole investigation after the destruction of Laputa. Pazu knew why, as far as he had told them this was the only spell invoked by him alone. His hand had been on the stone with Sheeta's in Laputa's throne room, but in Shuna's _tumurh_, he alone had touched it.

"Did Princess Lucita touch it?"  
"Did she invoke the word of power?"  
"Did Keya or Shuna touch it?"  
"Describe the effects of the _lirhum_ incantation in detail."  
"How did the spell end?"

And then the big one. A thin woman with red hair and cream robe who, as far as he could recall, had remained silent until now asked it. And as far as he could tell, this question was the only thing she said all day.

"This was the first incantation you had uttered. So how did you know how to end it?"

He told them. There was murmuring around the room. He took them back to his surmise that the ancient white haired man he recalled from his youth might have taught him _emisheh_, although he had no recollection.

"Why didn't you mention this before?"  
"You didn't ask me."  
"Don't be impertinent. We asked you about anything strange in your childhood."  
"And I told you – nothing. I only made a possible connection back to him years later. And that might not even be correct."

A weasel faced man with orange hair spoke:

"It is not your place to surmise anything. That is why we are here, to decide on such as this."

The recounting of the rest of the journey was not especially of interest to the Gathering. The discussion around the _telle_ in Thoma's inn held little sway, and he was surprised at how disinterested they were in Surun and his attempted kidnapping of their princess a second time. He could only assume her predicament was of less interest than who he was. And that really annoyed him.

"Don't you want to know more about these men from Numenaor?"  
"We are asking the questions."  
"You're not asking the right ones. These Numenaorian agents kidnapped Sheeta the first time and through them she met me. I brought her back, being pursued by them all the way. They committed two crimes in Bruaendell. The whole of Sheeta's journey away and back was because of them. Isn't this significant as far as the stone is concerned?"

The Chamberlain answered him:

"Mister Pazu, we understand your concern. However we are gathered here to determine who you are, not who else might be interested in the stone."  
"Their interest has a bearing on Sheeta, and she on me."  
"Is that so? Is there anything you wish to tell us?"  
"You should ask her about the night we met. Where her airship was when she fell from it and its position in relation to the Ravine."  
"We will. And now we are asking you as well. Thank you for bringing this up. Tell us."

He did. He didn't have any worries about it. As far as he was concerned her peculiar fall from the airship was one of the main unexplained events of this whole strange story. How she had drifted fifty miles across the night to float down into the Boss' mine pit was, to him, more significant with regard to who he was than the spell he'd drawn from the stone in Shuna's _tumurh_. This wasn't about men deciding who he was, it was about the stone itself deciding. Which was where the importance of Muska and Surun came in.

But they would have none of it. To them the fall seemed curious but not important. Even a miscalculation by him or the Princess. To them Muska and Surun were nothing, the destruction of Laputa was.

The day ended. He was exhausted. And he was angry. Why didn't they see the stone's inner life force as significant? He had described it clearly enough when it had lain in his hand. On his way out of the chamber he looked at the thin woman with the red hair. She nodded to him, very slowly and slightly.

--I--  
---o-o-oOo-o-o---  
I I

"If they start asking questions about my feelings towards you, don't answer. And yours toward me, don't answer."  
"Why?"  
"Just give them the facts about our journey, about Laputa, about any spells. They seem to want to know lots about us, about our relationship. Personal things. I refused to answer."

Sheeta looked shocked.

"You did?"  
"Hm. I was going to walk out at one point."  
"You never!"  
"Yes, they were sticking their nose into my business."  
"That's their job!"  
"Not with me it's not. And not with you either. Don't tell them anything about us, about… how close we are."  
"Paetsu, you don't walk out on the Grand Gathering, or refuse to answer their questions."  
"Why?"

They were in the inn again, the eight of them. Shuna had said he'd seen Keya in the street today. The man had ignored him. He was no doubt here to give evidence at the hearing and must be staying at another inn. Bhema and his brothers danced and took Teba to the dance area, showing him some of the wilder dance moves. Shuna, leaving his small son in Bhema's care, excused himself once more and went out into the night. Pazu and Sheeta again sat quietly alone in the corner. They sat on cushions but she cushioned him with her hand, her face, her soft presence. He realized how much he needed her, needed this.

"You just don't. They are the law makers. You don't have authority to refuse to answer."  
"I did refuse Sheeta. And they retracted their question."  
"They did?" she was stunned  
"So you must too."  
"Oh."  
"And I protected Tanner, and Morwen, and Hamar. I never mentioned their names. I refused."  
"You must have upset them."  
"Some of them, yes," he grinned at her.  
"That's not a good idea. You need to keep as many of them as friends as you can."  
"I feel as though they have made up their minds before they even came here."  
"You can't go around thinking like that. It makes a mockery of our Parlement."  
"Maybe they are a mockery. A few of them seem to be seriously looking for the truth, but most aren't. They want to focus on the spell use of the stone by the way."  
"I thought they might."  
"The _lirhum_ spell in Shuna's _tumurh_ seems to be the key event, when I drew out a spell on my own. And ended it."  
"Not the healing spell then?"  
"I didn't mention it."  
"You didn't? Why ever not?"  
"I was worried about telling them too much. It seemed to lead into the week that followed, and I don't want them to know about the library. I have this idea they might send someone to destroy it."  
"But the _aminhir muonith amur_ spell is the most powerful one you drew. There is no way you could have done that and not be of royal blood."  
"The _lirhum_ is better for our purposes. We had two witnesses, one on our side – I think – and one against. The _aminhir_ spell seems irrelevant by comparison. Also, I wasn't happy with them knowing you were shot, and could have died."  
"Why not?"

He was quiet for a moment.

"I didn't want them knowing I had put you in danger. I didn't want them thinking I couldn't take care of you."

She squeezed his hand.

"They don't know you. I'll tell them."  
"I'd rather you didn't."  
"This is an opportunity for me to paint you in a positive light. I won't mention the library though."  
"Be careful, they are very sharp people Sheeta, very fast witted. They can get you to admit things you don't mean to say. They say it's not a trial but it feels like one at times."

--I--  
---o-o-oOo-o-o---  
I I

The following day Pazu and the others were asked to wait in the annex in case they were needed. Pazu was a little concerned; Sheeta had risen with him but gone out early, gone on ahead saying she needed to prepare herself. He'd thought that meant mental preparation and had held her quickly, wished her luck. When she arrived later than them into the administration building he found out that she hadn't meant mental preparation at all. As she came in and walked past towards the debating chamber, escorted between two Parlement servants he gawped at her, a vision. She smiled at him and winked.

She wore formal court dress robes. She had decided several days before leaving the farm to wear these, she thought it might give her a small advantage. She was right. All the Councillors were dressed formally; yesterday Pazu had stood before them in workmen's clothes, he owned nothing else. Sheeta however, wore the green of Laputan royalty. No one else was entitled to wear this colour, the others present wore the usual earthy colours and ochres, creams and yellows.

She wore the loose silk pantaloons called _puorthtemi_ which were gathered tightly at the hips and hung down the legs in long loose flowing folds, gathered again tightly at the ankles. Her shirt was a _hakkaemi_, again of deep green silk with baggy sleeves gathered at the wrist. The bust was loose and open with a deep vee neckline and below the bust the _hakkaemi_ gathered tight in a bodice wound around with a silken scarf called _ueshonai_. These were usually of contrasting colour. Hers was red, the deep rich vibrant hue of blood. There was a band of bare skin, two inches between the belt of the _puorthtemi_ and the _hakkaemi_ bodice. Over the shirt she wore a heavy brocade _haemshi_ or formal robe almost as stiff as a carpet which was open and had wide projecting shoulder wings making her seem (with its strong vertical lines) both taller and broader. The open _haemshi_ with its tall standing collar and wide military sleeves was held six inches open at the waist by a golden chain. From the waist chain hung the golden filigree disc bearing the tree symbol of Laputa, her royal emblem. She had put her hair up in formal style, tightly bound around and upwards in a smooth conical shape, wound round with a red band the same colour as her_ ueshonai. _All of the parts of the costume were sewn with ornate gold thread in intricate animal and plant designs. Her face was painted with court white make-up, her lips red and her eyes shadowed around with deep green, the line of the make-up curving up her temples, giving her eyes the slanted look of a cat. Her face thus became an impenetrable mask, mysterious, inscrutable. At her throat lay the stone, the old leather cord replaced with fine golden chain. It seemed to be alive this morning and issued a pale glow like ice, stark against her white skin and the brilliant red and green of her robes. Normally soft low sandals would be worn but she chose to go barefoot, a symbolic act of contact with the ground that would not be missed by those present.

No other person in Gondoa was permitted to dress like this. She was unique. Also, she realized, she had never before in her entire life dressed this way. A small comfortable thought trailed across her girlish mind, her lovers mind. It had so happened that when she entered the annex building, Pazu had turned his head first and stood to gape at her. Apart from the servant girl she had hired at the inn, who had helped her bathe and dress this morning, he was the first person ever to see her like this. That small cute thought stayed with her all through the day and it gave her strength.

Her appearance drew no apparent reaction from the Gathering but she knew the costume's meaning wasn't lost on them. Simply wearing this required her subordinates (which was everyone) to address her formally. The formalities concluded, the questions began.

"Lady, what is your name?"  
"Lady, how old are you?"  
"Lady, where do you live?"  
"You are orphaned aren't you? Pray, Lady, tell us about your parents."  
"And grandparents? My Lady, there was a grandmother also wasn't there?"

Once again it began simply, in an almost friendly way. They all knew the answers to these questions, but the official record required they be asked and answered. She told them about her childhood, of the spells her grandmother had spoken of, the poems, the songs, the history.

"Lady, tell us about the day the men came."

Now she could begin to reveal the stone to them. She wanted to. She would slant this so that the person who would prove who Pazu was, wasn't a man or woman and wasn't able to give testimony. He was the stone. Or perhaps it was a she, Sheeta hadn't decided which.

She told them of the kidnapping, of her journey south by skidplane to Restormel and from there by commercial airship to Numenaor.

"Have you something Her Highness my draw with?"  
"You need to draw, Lady? A picture?"  
"A map."

Two servants brought in a large blackboard on a wheeled frame and provided chalk. As she described her abduction she drew the same map she had for Pazu in the cave. She made her point that when she fell from the airship during the pirate attack she was at least fifty miles from Slag's Ravine but had drifted down right to where Pazu worked.

"Were you conscious, Lady?"  
"No, Her Highness passed out during the fall."  
"It could merely have been a fall then, Lady. The airship could have been off course."  
"No. Her Highness is sure of it."  
"My Lady, there is no proof."

She thought hard.

"Dola and her pirates would know, they followed Her Majesty down."  
"With respect, my Lady, they are not witnesses to this hearing."  
"They should be found and called then."  
"Where are they, Lady?"

Sheeta thought. She had no idea.

"Her Highness does not know."  
"We must move on."  
"No. The log of the airship would give the position at the time of the pirate attack."  
"Lady, we do not have it."

Sheeta walked slowly and elegantly to the lady Councillor who was questioning her, a small round middle aged woman from Tohro Province, her bench on the south side of the chamber. Each section of benches represented the settlements from one of the six provinces of Gondoa. This woman was a southerner. Sheeta reached the woman, she was taller than the older woman.

Sheeta smiled pleasantly at her.

"Her Highness requests that the log of the airship Menandaer be submitted to this enquiry as evidence of the location of Her Highness when she fell. The location of Slag Ravine is known. This will prove that the stone did not merely arrest Her Highness' fall but carried her more than fifty miles from the Menandaer to the location of _Paetsu Fuhmonhir_. It is Her Highness' assertion that the _stone_ decided _Paetsu Fuhmonhir_ is who he claims to be."

Muttering filled the room.

"My Lady, with respect, it is just a stone, magical yes, but not sentient."  
"You are wrong. Her Highness knows it is alive."

She smiled sweetly at the short Councillor.

"See that this is done. The Gathering will not conclude its findings until this evidence is submitted."  
"Yes my Lady."

She knew what they were doing. They were trying to reject all evidence that indicated that _Paetsu_ was special. It was so unfair. Why were they so disinterested in the stone? It was as though they didn't want to even consider the stone as being alive. Like _Paetsu_ had said, like they had decided in advance.

They led her through the Tepis events and were very interested in Muska. Sheeta suddenly wanted to know more about him. Where he had lived, how long he'd been away from Gondoa. All his life? But if they knew, the Gathering did not see fit to tell her. She asked but hiding behind their smokescreen of the point of the investigation, they declined to inform her.

As Pazu had warned, they began to slant the questions so that they became more subtle and more personal. One innocent seeming line of enquiry about when they were traveling led to her being asked what the sleeping arrangements had been. The question was so odd and so sudden that she almost missed it.

"Her Highness declines to answer."  
"Lady, why not?"  
"Because these are private matters."  
"In that case, my Lady, the Gathering knows you have a close relationship with Mister Pazu, because if you had not, my Lady would not take issue with the question."

Sheeta walked to the gentleman asking the question. He held her gaze as she approached.

"You miss Her Highness' point. Whatever happened of this nature while Her Highness was traveling, such things are not your business. Nor is it seemly that this enquiry should infer anything from Her Highness silence."  
"With respect my Lady, the Gathering makes all these issues it's business. It has to, we need to know the truth."  
"What truth? Whether or not I'm still a maiden? Is that what you want to know?"  
"Of course not…"  
"You will address Her Highness correctly."  
"Of course not, my Lady."  
"What then?"  
"Princess Lucita," the Chamberlain spoke, "please calm yourself. Of course we don't wish to know of such personal things. However it is important that we try to establish the character of this Mister Pazu. We know from the texts what sort of man _Paztsu Phom_ was and there is a lot of information on his descendants, at least for some generations. Only then do things become undocumented. By comparing this Mister Pazu with what is know of _Phom's_ bloodline we can be greatly assisted in our investigation. Do you not see?"  
"Are you saying you _do_ want to know if we lay together? Is that it?"  
"Of course not, my Lady, but…"  
"Well don't ask then!" she was livid.

How dare they? _Paetsu_ had got cross with these insolent people, and now they were making her angry as well. What was wrong with them?

"Her Highness requests that this offensive question be struck from the record."  
"We gain nothing by offending the witness. We should move on," Councillor Kamaesa spoke.

Sheeta's description of the destruction of Goliath was clear and lucid, if harrowing. She quite plainly painted Muska to be a deranged maniac who harboured only a desire to commit mass murder on an international scale. She felt that if any of these Councillors knew him, or knew of him, this description of the last hour of his life would help them to decide if he was a man worthy of support or not. One person didn't miss a thing. A thin red haired woman who had been silent all morning.

"My Lady, how did _Paztsu Romuska_ know how to do all this?" she asked  
"He had a book?"  
"What sort of book, Lady?"  
"A small black notebook. He kept referring to it as though it were instructions or a translation of things."  
"You don't know where he got it, my Lady? Or what happened to it?"  
"No. Her Highness thinks it was in his pocket when the dome collapsed."  
"Thank you, Highness."

Someone had thanked her. For the first time today her responses had elicited thanks from someone. She turned to face the red haired lady.

"You are welcome, Councillor," she nodded her head and the lady nodded back.  
"I move that we should make efforts to locate this book," the red haired Councillor spoke, "It may well be on _Paztsu Romuska's_ body. I move that we approach the Marinaen Government and seek to recover his body as that of a Gondoan citizen."  
"I agree," the Chamberlain replied, "Make a note of it."

She spoke to one of the secretaries.

"Now, Princess Lucita, please describe your journey from leaving the farm near Porthaven until you met with Shuna and Keya."

She did, omitting all names but including the fight with the men in suits and the stealing of the flying machine. When she got to the crash she pressed on. Some of the councilors leaned forwards to listen. This was a different story from yesterday, from the man.

"In the woods Her Highness was shot by one of the soldiers. She was hurt very badly. Her Highness told Paetsu to use the spell of healing, _aminhir mu_…"  
"It is alright, Lady, we do not need to hear the incantation itself."

An elderly bald man had interrupted her. Sheeta felt insulted. Why interrupt? The incantation wouldn't have drawn out a spell, she wasn't focusing on doing so. She looked at the man who had spoken, at his eyes. She distrusted him.

"Her Highness does not recall much until several days later when she woke up. She had lost a lot of blood. Her Highness had been shot near the heart – or so she was told by _Paetsu Fuhmonhir. Paetsu_ drew the spell from the stone on his own."  
"My Lady, how do you know?"  
"He must have. Her Highness was unconscious."  
"You may have done it, Lady."  
"No, Her Highness was too weak."  
"You can't know that if you were asleep for several days, my Lady."  
"You don't understand me. Her Highness gave _Paetsu_ the stone and told him what the incantation was, then she passed out."  
"If you were holding the stone when you said the incantation, my Lady it seems clear to me that you healed yourself."

Was he stupid or being deliberately obtuse?

"_Well you weren't there_. And you've never drawn a spell from a royal stone."  
"Don't be impertinent."  
"You forget your station! Be pleased to address me correctly. I am your queen in case you've forgotten. I have drawn spells from the stone. I know what it feels like. You have to have an intent in your mind, an 'I am going to do this' decision. When I was bleeding on the forest floor I merely gave _Paetsu_ the stone and told him what to say. Then I passed out. _He_ said the incantation, _he_ drew out the spell."  
"Your testimony is not conclusive, Lady."  
"What is the matter with you? There was no-one else there. Why are you choosing not to believe me?"  
"This hearing is an investigation. I am not going to enter into a conversation with you, my Lady."

Sheeta was furious.

"Her Highness is not satisfied with your answer. Chamberlain, I request that the Gathering responds to my question. It is as I say, the only person in that clearing able to draw a healing spell from the stone was _Paetsu Fuhmonhir_. Why the Gathering refuses to see this I do not understand unless there is an intent to hide something or avoid something."  
"What are you suggesting, my Lady?"  
"Her highness is suggesting that this enquiry is refusing to accept that my testimony contains a reasonable probability that _Paetsu Fuhmonhir_ drew a healing spell from a royal stone. The Councillor to my right is refusing to accept that it is possible that is what happened. All Her Highness requires is that the Gathering accepts the possibility and treats it as such in their deliberations."

Councillor Kamaesa was impressed. Not only did Her Highness have a strong will and sharp mind, she was quick too.

"If I may speak, my Lady, Chamberlain. I believe that it is not in the Gathering's remit to discount the evidence presented to it. I believe the Gathering should accept all testimony and subsequently debate the likelihood of events once all testimony has been received. I think that is fair. Councillor Ptuomasa of Heyng, if you please I would like to accept my Lady's testimony on this point. We are not agreeing it is true, merely accepting it as a possibility."

But Kamaesa knew that once it was down in ink on the debating manuscript it would hold much more weight than now, while clever minds and voices twisted it's validity and lay it aside.

"Very well. Proceed," the Chamberlain closed the discussion on that matter.

Sheeta stood before the plump bald man. Now she had a name for him as well, and his town. She stared at him. He bowed his head obsequiously and dropped his gaze. She knew she had an enemy here though.

"Her Highness was ill for four days after which she awoke. During her time of illness while she had lost so much blood _Paetsu Fuhmonhir_ had fed her a _Moyo_ and _Poki_ broth the ingredients for which he had picked in the forest."  
"I am sorry, my Lady, I do not follow. That would be the medicinal treatment yes?"  
"Correct."  
"How would a Numenaorian have known to prepare such a treatment?"  
"Her Highness cannot offer an explanation, she can only present the facts."  
"Made up wild stories you mean."

The comment was low and faint but Sheeta picked it up. She whirled around and strode up to the round bald man.

"You have something to say, Councillor?"  
"I did not speak, my Lady."  
"You are a liar. I heard you. Repeat what you said."

The Councillor looked at the stone, the blue glow from it was a little stronger, and it was emitting pale tendrils of colour, like faint smoke. He had never seen it do that before. He looked up at the white face, the green painted eyes.

"My sincerest apologies, I withdraw any remark, my Lady."

Sheeta leaned close to him. The stone on its slender chain dangled in front of her. As it swung it left a trail of smoke behind it in the air. Several nearby Councillors saw this and muttering filled the chamber. Sheeta whispered,

"I have just about heard enough from your mouth Councillor. It is plain you are against _Paetsu_, and me. I think it would be in your interests to keep silent for the rest of this interview."

Her eyes blazed at him, blue fire in her eyes, blue smoke at her throat. The man nodded once, but did not drop his eyes.

"My Lady, if you please, we should continue," suggested the Chamberlain.  
"However Her Highness wishes it to be noted that Paetsu Fuhmonhir prepared an advanced medicine, one that most of our doctors cannot efficiently make."  
"Note that on the record," the Chamberlain spoke to her secretaries.

The interview after that was anticlimax. The other significant incident, the _lirhum_ spell drawn inside Shuna's _tumurh_ had nothing added to it by Sheeta's testimony. The Gathering was eager to hear this event recounted by Shuna and Keya.

By early afternoon, it was over. A tired and thoroughly annoyed queen of Gondoa swept from the chamber.

The Gathering called Shuna as the next witness.

--I--  
---o-o-oOo-o-o---  
I I

"I am _so angry_! It's just as you said! Some of them have already decided and are trying to exclude certain facts so that the final debate won't discuss them."

Sheeta stood outside in the cobbled courtyard behind the annex, her back rigid, fists clenched at her sides.

"Now you see. There is something going on here," said Pazu, "This Parlement is corrupt. They don't want to recognize me as royalty. I know it. Their plans must involve rejecting my claim so as to prevent the sky party causing trouble."  
"My Paetsu. My lovely boy," she looked at him, he in his plain workman's clothes, contrasting with her finery, "I'm coming close to the point of ignoring the lot of them. We just go home, get married and forget the whole stinking corrupt business."

He looked at her. He glanced at the stone. It was burning blue, even out here in the daylight.

"Look at the stone. It's glowing. Why?"  
"Me I think. Strong emotion."  
"How does it do that?"  
"I don't know. It is magic you know."

He smiled at her, she had this way with words sometimes.

"I thought it was becoming stronger because we were using it. I wonder if it's becoming stronger because of your emotions."  
"Who knows? To be quite honest I'm past caring now. I just want to go home."  
"Well," he took a pace back from her, "if I can be of any consolation, you do look stunning. Magnificent. Beautiful."

She managed to raise a small smile.

"Thank you. You say the nicest things."  
"I try to, when I'm not saying the wrong, stupid things."

--I--  
---o-o-oOo-o-o---  
I I

The Gathering dealt quickly with Shuna and the following day with Keya, Thoma from the inn and the brief testimony of the four brothers who had witnessed the fire spell at the farm.

The trip to Penraeth ended in frustrating anti-climax. The Gathering's debate could not be concluded without the log book of the air-liner Menandaer. The whole investigation was adjourned for six weeks while an official was sent to Restormel to discuss this with the air transport company.

They went back home, spirits deflated, bitter and frustrated. On the ride home Sheeta became resigned, she had this feeling that the Gathering would not recognize _Paetsu_. She could feel their attitude had been sloppy, casual. He was potentially the titular head of their nation, had they been genuinely interested in debating his claim they would have left no stone unturned, would have eagerly investigated all the evidence instead of ignoring some of what she said. And if _Paetsu_ remained just Pazu? What then? Did it matter?

Before they heard the Gathering's conclusion, however, a lot happened. _Suethelhin_ came. Pazu found out something very strange in the ancient books he had been working at. And the dreams started. The dreams that would cause him many sleepless nights. The dreams that would make him afraid to even lie down and close his eyes. The dreams came.

_- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - _

_9 - __10 April 2007_

_For author notes about Chapter Forty Three, please see my forum (click on my pen name)_


	45. Chapter 44 : Divisions

**Chapter Forty Four – Divisions**

It was disarmingly strange, living their simple life on the farm, while around them they knew that minds were thinking about them and making decisions that would so much affect them, decisions on their behalf, as though they were children, as though they were puppets in a play.

Weeks went by and the solstice drew near. While this question was in the air there was no possibility of them being married, of even making plans. If he was to be recognized their wedding would become an affair of importance to the whole country, so until the Gathering completed their deliberations, nothing could be done and they lived in a kind of limbo

Pazu still was not comfortable in her bed. Throughout all these long weeks of waiting they lived like brother and sister, abstaining from all but holding and kissing, and showing no affection in public beyond holding hands. The abstinence was hard, they were both grown adults and some nights the temptations were almost too much to bear, they both wanted more. But they had spoken at length about this, they wanted their future to be decided before they committed themselves to both marriage and the acts of marriage.

But in her heart Sheeta fretted. She wondered what would come of all this, where it was heading. She didn't want another Muska to arise, another misguided man or group of men to get an understanding of the levitation technology and discover another castle. The fact that the Gathering now knew about Muska's book bothered her. She hoped his body would never be found, or if it was, that his book would have been destroyed by the sea water. The scenario of finding the notebook was so bleak it threw her into whole days of gloomy depression.

But some days were wonderful. When it was bright and sunny she took them out on Immy and they rode miles along the valley and over the hills. He became familiar with the countryside of northern Gondoa.

Sheeta used this time wisely. She made sure that during their rides Pazu became known in her village and in the surrounding settlements. They visited frequently and Pazu offered to do work for people, particularly on farm machinery, wind and water pumps. She had been right, his natural friendliness, openness and honesty made him many friends and he began to relax into this community and began to be accepted.

She began to teach him to ride. As in other things he was a good learner, he fell often but he was brave and wise enough to know that it was best to get right back in the saddle. Immy was a rather excitable horse for a beginner, however and while he was busy she visited horse dealers. She knew the perfect wedding present for him.

One afternoon returning from a ride beside the river, they entered the farm. A young woman was waiting.

"_Paztsu_, Councillor Kamaesa requests an interview."

Sharing a look, they both walked up the lane to the Councillors hut.

The old woman was inside, doing some cooking. Or it might have been her laundry, Sheeta wasn't sure what the grey mess in the pot over the fire contained. The two young people nodded in greeting, the Councillor bowed slightly and held her palms together in welcome.

"Please, be seated."

There was nothing to sit on. They sank down cross legged on the earth floor. A minute passed while the old woman stirred the contents of the pot.

"There is a problem, _Paetsu_."  
"I had guessed as much, Councillor."  
"Please, by all means drop the formalities in here. We trust that we speak as friends here."

Pazu and Sheeta shared a look.

"Alright. Thank you."  
"If you are _Paetsu_, the true Prince, come home again."  
"Yes?"  
"We foresee trouble."  
"I had thought so too."  
"No. We mean a great deal of trouble."  
"What kind of trouble?"  
"Fighting."  
"What? Why?"  
"Men's hearts, _Paetsu_. Men's hearts. They fear what they do not understand. There are some within the Gathering who are scared of you. Very scared. They feel as though Gondoa's stability is threatened by what you may usher in should you become prince."  
"That's crazy. I've no plans at all. Well. Sheeta and I want to be married. We are very much in love. We want to live here."  
"We know. It's written across your faces as broad as a yaoko's arse, it falls from you to the earth at every step you take. It flows from your mouths when you breathe. We know how you feel toward each other."

She smiled kindly at the couple.

"Well," Pazu was a little embarrassed by her words, "thank you, but I just want to learn about your society, learn your language, know your songs, read your books. I am an engineer however, I want to build flying machines."  
"Exactly. In our society the whole idea of flight has taken on an aura, a mystique. It represents something. Men might fly from town to town delivering messages or passengers and doing no more, but to some men it represents a return to what we once had. They fear it for that alone."  
"They are stupid."  
"No, Paetsu, they are just men, ordinary men with ordinary fears. You have to remember our history, our background. But some are not prepared to let such things happen. They would take up the sword to stop it."  
"And if I don't build flying machines? If I don't encourage others to?"  
"They will still fear you, if you become prince. Once a group of men think about taking up the sword those that oppose their views must do also in order to defend themselves. You know where this leads don't you?"

Pazu stared at the grey bubbling pot.

"Yes. But. This is _insane_. Men fear the flying islands, the castles, the weapons they carry, and yet... they are prepared to destroy each other… in order to stop them destroying each other. It's madness."  
"They don't see it that way, they don't think into the future. They cannot see beyond the points of their own arrows."  
"How likely is it to come to fighting?"

Kamaesa merely shrugged her shoulders.

"And if men take sides," he asked, "they know Sheeta's views don't they? Those who represent the Soil will try and influence you to become their figurehead."  
"I won't let that happen," she said  
"You might have no choice, Sheeta. Councillor, what should I do?"  
"We can't instruct you _Paetsu_, the decision is yours, we can only advise you what might happen."  
"If we get married, will that influence the situation?"  
"We cannot say, probably it will have some effect but it might not even be a good effect."

Pazu sat, dumbfounded. This couldn't be happening. Men weren't this mad were they? He looked at Sheeta, she stared at the floor.

"Has the stone done this Sheeta? Did it find me in order to set this chain of events in motion? Or did it just choose me one night because I was the best person for you? Does it care about us or about Gondoa?"

She looked at him.

"_Paetsu_, I don't know. I don't think I understand anything anymore. All I know is I love you and want to be with you. Living simply on the farm. I'm not asking for much am I?"  
"Sheeta, you're not asking for anything at all."

He drew in a deep breath.

"Somehow we will get through this. I don't know how but we will. Councillor, is there any news yet from Penraeth on the Gathering's decision?"  
"We expect they will deliver their decision after the Solstice. It is less than two weeks away and it would be politically inappropriate to deliver a contentious decision right before the years main celebration."  
"You know," Sheeta spoke quietly, "I did have these silly thoughts, of maybe marrying you on Solstice dawn _Paetsu_."  
"There is nothing I would like more Sheeta, nothing would make me happier, but I think it's out of the question."  
"I hate men. That stupid Muska, all this is his fault."  
"He wasn't all stupid you know. Without him we wouldn't have met."

She put out her hand and held his. Everything was going wrong. He was all she had. And she didn't know how long she would have him. She held on tightly.

_- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - _

_11 April 2007_

_For author notes about Chapter Forty Four, please see my forum (click on my pen name)_


	46. Chapter 45 : Solstice

**Chapter Forty Five – Solstice**

"Come, let's go. It will be starting soon."

Pazu was standing in the mud at the edge of the wet grass. Just looking. A few yards in front of him the waters of the lake lapped at the gravelly shore. Two yards behind him the clear grass ended and the snow began, its edge a clear line where it lay on the sloping field.

"Sheeta, come here."  
"We'll miss the opening prayers."  
"Look at this, it won't take a minute."

She came through the gate and across the snowy field, stopping beside him.

"What?"  
"What do you see?"  
"The lake, some mud, some grass. Um, and snow."  
"Yes. Odd isn't it? Funny?"  
"I'm laughing my head off. It's so hilarious. Let's go."  
"Why isn't there any snow here?"

She pursed her lips.

"Hm, warm lake water?"  
"Yes I think so. But lake water shouldn't be this warm, it should be frozen after this much cold weather. We've had snow on the ground – it's been below freezing for weeks."

He took the tin mug he was holding and stepped to the water and dipped it in.

"Here, dip your fingers in. It's actually warm."  
"Yes I know. It's always warm. I swim in it some days, even in spring or autumn. Bit chilly today but the water is often warm."  
"You know?"  
"Hm, course. Is that wrong or something? The lake has always been warm."  
"It shouldn't be. It should be icy cold."

She bent down in front of him and turned her head to look up at his face, she made big eyes.

"Something's making it warm stupid! Now come on! You can talk to me about warm lakes while we're walking."

They went along the lane to the village, she reached for and took his hand. The pathways to the communal hall were crowded with revelers. It sounded like some had started the party early in their own homes.

"Do you know what makes it warm?"  
"It's something in the rocks, some natural heat source. There are hot springs across the lake, we go there to bathe sometimes. Some are lovely, like hot baths. Some of the pools are almost boiling, you can't touch the water. I don't know what causes it. Shuna might know."

--I--  
---o-o-oOo-o-o---  
I I

He looked up at the ceiling of the hall. The rafters were hung with beautiful garlands of evergreen and laced with bunches of red and orange berries, dried fruit and dozens of flowers made of bright cloth and paper. There were paper masks and animals among the greenery and dozens of candles on large iron hoops hung from the ceiling by chains. The place smelled of pine sap and a scented perfume that reminded him of fruit, a rich earthy sharp smell. A fire blazed in the central hearth and the hall was packed. The whole village was gathered in this huge timber building; six hundred people or more. Everyone was kneeling and facing the hearth where Councillor Kamaesa led a service of prayer. Pazu couldn't understand a word of it but no matter, he wasn't a man to pray anyway and he just let himself drift along with the sounds, sights and smells. From time to time people would stand, come forward and speak, some reading from a big book and others apparently speaking words of their own. For a while a young man stood and played one of their small wind instruments, something between a recorder and a tin whistle. It gave a low plaintive moaning cry and he played beautifully and quietly. Above the sound of his playing three women stood and related something from a book. Pazu learned later that this was a great tragic poem and he could tell that this performance had a very strong effect on the gathered silent crowd. The atmosphere became charged with emotion and around him he could hear people sniffing and weeping.

Sheeta had warned him that today's celebration would get emotional.

"It begins with a time of repentance. We say sorry for our mistakes, the sins we've committed, wrong things we have said or done to others. Then we ask _Lucita_ to forgive us, to take away the bad dark dead things and replace them with fresh new vibrant places in our hearts. After that cleansing we say prayers for the dead, people who died this year. Remembering the dead, honouring them. It can go on for some time and there will be music and songs, but not the sort of music you heard in Thoma's inn. Do forgive me if I get tearful, some of the songs and poems are quite emotional."

Sad songs or not, Pazu found the day uplifting, restful and he spent time with closed eyes just thinking things through. He thought about the times ahead and what trials they might face. But there was nothing new to consider. He had thought about this and thought about this and thought about this until his mind just ached and felt hollow and empty. Until new facts or news changed the situation there was nothing to be gained by turning it round and around. He'd looked at it from every angle, he and Sheeta just had to wait for the Gathering's decision. And make plans then.

So he let his mind wander aimlessly, drifting from event to event of that year, of the days since a girl in a blue dress had magically floated into his life. But with a young girl next to him weeping, perhaps for a dead mother or father or more likely a grandparent his mind turned to death. He had seen death once or twice from a distance in the mines and he had seen the ruined house from a distance as well, the smoke curling up from the explosion and Okami holding him back, preventing the eight year old Pazu from running up the hill and seeing what remained in the rubble. He had remembered his mother, sending him off that morning with a piece of pie, a bottle of lemonade and an apple in a cloth.

"Bye mom! See you tonight!"  
"Bye Pazu, be good and work hard!"  
"I will mom. Bye!"

Outside on the grass his father, working away at the engine of the flying machine. He had given up with the old small steam power plant, it was too heavy and put out too little power. He and Adam had yesterday bought one of the new fangled Jessop gas motors from Eckhmer. His dad was dry running it on compressed air and would later take it into the basement and charge up the tanks.

"Hey, Pazu. Come down to the workshop later when you're done and I'll show you the new engine."  
"Thanks dad, see you!"  
"Bye lad!"

He never saw them again. He hadn't even kissed them goodbye.

He had finished work and stopped at Okami's to collect some bed sheets she had sewn for mom. Okami had given him a slice of cake and a playful ruffle of his hair and he'd stepped out the door and as he looked up at his house it had vanished it a flash of orange fire and brown smoke. He had screamed and gone to run up the hill but Okami had grabbed his arm and held him, yelling and writhing while men from the village ran to the burning remains of his home.

At the funeral there had been just one coffin. There had been so little to find and what there was couldn't be identified so they had buried husband and wife together in one casket.

Pazu stared at the wooden floor in front of his nose. Why had this come to him now? He hadn't thought about this clearly in years. He wasn't a man to pray. He didn't have time for gods, they'd certainly never had time for him. He'd never prayed. Only once, outside a shed last summer, a shed that became a funeral pyre. So not being a praying man of course he prayed now, as you do when your mind and emotions are susceptible. He prayed for forgiveness for killing a man. In his heart he felt he hadn't done wrong. The blond man who kicked down the farmhouse door would have killed him. There was no choice in the matter. Do nothing and die or do something and kill. If he had done nothing, Sheeta would have suffered too. No, no choice in it. He said sorry to the big man and asked _Lucita_ to forgive him.

Then he thought about a soldier, a man not much older than himself. Had there been a choice here? Yes, probably. But he had to act quickly, he didn't know if the boy would fire again and his mind was full of anger, his desire to protect her. Yes, that had been a mistake, he felt. And he was sorry. He prayed for _Lucita_ to forgive him. He prayed that the boy's parents might find peace.

But worst of all had been the abandoned farm and the murdered family. Especially the children. The boys, perhaps no older than the little crying girl next to him now. He prayed again that they be at peace. He also asked for _Lucita_ and _Maerth-dhu_ to be merciful on the soldiers who had done that.

He said sorry for telling so many lies and getting Tanner into trouble. He asked _Lucita_ to look after Tanner and Morwen, to grant them a good harvest next year. And then, because he was a man who never prayed he suddenly found himself praying for all sorts of people. For the men who had caused this war, he prayed that their consciences would let them agree a peace. He prayed that Muska, wherever he was would be at peace. He prayed for the misguided man in the green suit, whose name he had never learned. He prayed for the Gondoan Grand Gathering, that they may reach the right decision. The decision that was best for Gondoa and not their own interests. He prayed for Councillor Kamaesa, for her good health. He prayed for Keya, that he might make the right choices in the times ahead. He thanked Shuna for his help, thanked _Utomu_ for guiding them safely home, asked _Utomu_ to protect their home and anyone who set out on journeys from it, and he went on and on, praying for thirty minutes to all kinds of people and for all kinds of things. And finally his mind came to rest on the person by his side. He didn't know what to pray for her. He finally settled on a kind of wish, that _Lucita_ would be close to her forever, and protect her and love her and keep her from being sick or injured and finally that Sheeta would be happy. Happiness, he prayed for that. Children? Yes, he had thought of children before, so he prayed that she be fruitful and have healthy children. And while he was praying and the tears that he hadn't even noticed were flowing down his face her arm came around him, both arms. And she hugged him and told him she loved him.

And suddenly it all burst out of him, all the stresses and strains, all the worry and anger, all the fear and the guilt and the heavy load of responsibility he had borne throughout the Tepis and Laputa and Marinaer journeys. That awful moment in the forest when he thought he had lost her. He wept simply for the agony of that memory. The simple sadness of that abandoned library. He found himself sobbing and the pain and anguish came flooding out. Sheeta didn't know what had caused this but she held on tight as his bent over back was wracked with sobs. She kissed the back of his neck and murmured her love for him against his hair, and eventually when he could cry no more, when the weight had left him and he was healed, he stopped, knelt up and held her in return.

Whatever this next year would bring, Pazu knew, with her beside him, he could face it. If she were there, that was all that mattered.

--I--  
---o-o-oOo-o-o---  
I I

The sun was setting. It was only three in the afternoon but this far north in winter the days were short, seven hours of daylight, seventeen of night. A loud horn sounded. A dull, deep braying mournful tone. Everyone quietly filed outside into the gloom and the hundreds stood in the centre of the village. The two huge wooden horns mounted on the roof of the hall and blown by a series of men in rotation announced the dying year. Up and down the valley they could hear other horns blowing from the communal halls of other villages. It sounded like a dozen giant cows coming home to a giant milk shed. The sun wasn't visible, it was overcast, but the elders of the village knew what time it set and as the hour approached people fell silent. A few prayed, a few murmured their thanks and made their final tearful goodbyes to those this year had taken and then the crowd fell silent. For two minutes there was no sound but the gentle rustling of the wind and the lapping of the lake water. Then a deep boom of a gong sounded, and again, and a third time. Pazu was surprised to hear the crowd shout and yell and stamp their feet and shake their fists and make circle shapes around their heads and their children's heads.

Sheeta stood on tip-toe beside him and with her finger drew an imaginary halo around his head, wide enough for his shoulders to fit in.

"Circle me, circle me, quickly!"

He did so.

"Thank you. People are scaring _Maerth-dhu_ away, the old year is dying, _Maerth-dhu_ comes on solstice night, the longest night and he gathers up all the rubbish and takes it away, all the dead things, the fears, the pain, the sickness, the bad bits of everything. People shout and chant and stamp to scare him so he won't come in the night and grab them too. And the circle is a circle of life, a circle of protection. He can't break it if someone who loves you draws it around you. Look at the parents doing it for their children, and look! Those who live alone without family have their friends protect them. I love this ceremony _Paetsu_, I love it _so much_. It's the end of everything that is bad about the old year. From now on we look forwards and onwards. Life is coming. New life. After midnight spring comes closer with every second, _Lucita_ is coming!"

Her eyes shone with excitement. Pazu could get into this, these spirits, the things these people believed in. It was such a positive happy faith, nothing morbid, nothing negative.

Around them people were jeering and shouting and stamping.

"I can think of another circle that helps, that protects," he said, "come here."

Alone in the crowd of screaming revelers two young people were still and silent and held on hard to each other, a circle of love joining them.

--I--  
---o-o-oOo-o-o---  
I I

Then the fun started. The music and dancing, the food and the drinking. Sheeta and Pazu decided they weren't going to drink. But they ate well and Sheeta spent time taking him by the hand around the hall introducing him to all her friends and lots of people she knew less well. Shuna was there and he and Pazu talked about horse riding and using the bow. Shuna said he would teach him, and to use the short Gondoan sword, the _khumeht_ or long knife. They talked also about the warm lake and the hot springs. Shuna told him that the mountain across the lake was a volcano. Long dormant but it had fire in its heart deep underground and that warmed the lake. There were tunnels under it, caverns. He'd show him someday.

The music and song was more or less controlled until midnight but then, to the sound of the big gong again the place went wild, madder than the maddest moments at Thoma's inn the night they had crossed the border.

Sheeta explained that at solstice midnight, the very middle of the darkest longest night _Maerth-dhu_ became corporeal, he took a physical body, a giant man with a dog's head and so could for an hour avoid _Lucita_ who retained her spiritual body in heaven. Invisible to her he sneaked around the world and took away anyone unsuspecting or silent or afraid or alone or evil. So the people always gathered together in large groups (they even brought in the sick and those who had no friends welcoming them to the party) and made as much noise and sounded as happy as they could possibly be. This kept _Maerth-dhu_ away. For an hour between midnight and one the mindless dancing and shouting and drinking and music carried on. Then, exhausted, the musicians and the crowd quietened down a little and people began to sing happy songs, hopeful songs, love songs, jolly family tunes.

Sheeta and Pazu found a fairly dark corner as quiet as you could get in that noisy place and lay down, pulling a fleece over themselves and they rested. Sheeta said he would need to, sunrise was at eight and then the partying would begin again. These small hours of the night was the only time to get some rest.

--I--  
---o-o-oOo-o-o---  
I I

"_Paetsu_, wake up. It's morning."

It was still dark, the hall felt no different except it was perhaps less fresh smelling. The fetid scent of hundreds of hot bodies, cooking and ale formed a palpable unique stink. It would have offended a traveler just coming in from the fresh mountain air outside but to Pazu and those inside the hall it was just the smell of a good party.

"Come on, outside."

Once again the crowd went out. They walked out of the village in a long streaming mass, a gently flowing snake of people up the hill to the south of the settlement they went, some carrying children on their shoulders, others holding musical instruments or burning torches or boughs of pine tree green. Many, Pazu noticed, wore paper masks of green as though they were themselves plants. The crowd assembled on a hill top south of the village. Pazu and Sheeta knew this place, they had ridden Immy up here often. It commanded a view towards the lower lying ground to the south and behind them back over the village, the river and the lake. The hill had a flat top as though it had been artificially leveled, a slight eastward facing slope had been cut here, making the place like a huge viewing platform. Even a person in the middle or back of the crowd, standing behind hundreds of others would have a clear view to the eastern horizon. The hill was between two other villages and crowds climbed up from them as well so that almost two thousand people gathered there.

Silence. The people were still and calm. Every eye looked to the east. The light in the sky was pale and wan, but there was little cloud and in the west the last stars were fading. It was going to be a clear day, beautiful weather. There was a raised mound of snowy earth and three people stood there, Kamaesa and two other Councillors. The three of them were speaking in strong tones words Pazu couldn't catch. The voices went on as the light in the sky grew, the first colours of sunrise came into the sky, gentle pinks, lilacs and warmer tones of salmon and gold. Pazu looked around him. To the north at the foot of the mountains the lake and river were shrouded in mist, tendrils of white smoked over the water and crept up the fields and into the village streets, each house an island. To the south the view was beautiful, a great wide flat bowl of land with more distant hills beyond. The whole was white with snow and awash with mystical pale smoke, trees and farms grew through it.

Pazu had never seen anything like it. The steep vertical noisy industrial stinking scarred landscape of the Ravine had nothing to compare to this. This crowd was held down, held in place by emotion. It was just a sunrise, the same as three hundred and sixty others, just an illusion caused by the planet spinning in space, but men's minds made poetry from it, turned it into a cornerstone of their lives and beliefs made it a thing of hope and comfort, of renewal and joy. Pazu was lost with them, drawn into this world of primitive beliefs. He moved to stand behind Sheeta. He put his arms around her across her tummy and held her against him, watching the sky over her shoulder. The east was a glowing dome now, the brilliant pinks, oranges and reds were a wall, like a gigantic bright creature rising up over the flanks of the world. Around the hilltop the mist in the lower lying fields began to turn pink, it became a fairy tale world.

Then it happened, a gasp swept through the thousands, a murmur, a small motion of the heart. A tiny bright yellow slice of something appeared at the horizon and moment by moment it grew, becoming brighter and rounder, a pinprick, then a line and finally a crescent. Pazu had half expected a reaction from the crowd or words from the three speakers but there was nothing, not a word stained the silence of this moment, not a sound from man corrupted this perfect dawn. For ten minutes no-one moved, no-one spoke, amazingly not even a baby cried. Silence. Total, magical, complete and wonderful as the sun came up. Its rosy light swept over the land across the misty fields and up the hill lighting two thousand faces with its painted hope, filling two thousand hearts with peace, wonder and love. For a few astonishing moments the whole white snowy land was painted pink and golden.

The suns disk was complete, sunrise was over, the burning yellow circle climbed in the sky and the low lying mist began to burn off, the land was steaming. The last corners of the night were being burned away. Soon it became impossible to look directly at the sun. People began to talk, there was laughter among the crowd, people hugged and somewhere behind them a fiddle was played, people were dancing. Again the three Councillors spoke and now things began to happen, groups formed and people went forward.

"Marriage ceremonies," Sheeta said, "solstice dawn is the most favoured time for weddings. Today we have," she stood on tip toe counting, "five. Five couples."  
"Do you wish it was us?" he asked.  
"In some ways yes, in others, no. On solstice dawn there are always multiple weddings. It's a beautiful time to be married but it's never private. When it happens for us I would like it to just be us."  
"It will be. Soon. I promise. No matter what happens, what men do or think, it will be soon."

A lot of people stayed for the weddings, others began to walk back to the villages, there didn't seem to be any strict procedure. Pazu stayed still, not paying particular attention to the marriages but not wanting to go either. He just wanted this to not end. The dawn had had a profound effect on him. It wasn't just that it was a beautiful location or that it had been a spectacular sunrise, the thing that had affected him most was the crowd, the sense of wonder and belonging he had felt pouring out of these simple farming people. They were indeed people of the soil. For the first time he really connected to that. What use did these communities have for flying machines, steam engines and motor lorries?

"We can go back when you like. The Solstice dawn breakfast will be taking place soon."  
"I'd like to stay here for a little longer."  
"That's alright. Anywhere with your arms around me is fine for me."  
"Sheeta, I'm changed."  
"Hm? What do you mean?"  
"This day, last night. The prayers. This sunrise, these people. This land. Your home. It's affecting me. I can feel it."  
"Is it a good feeling?"  
"Yes, very good. Now I understand why you want to be here. This is a wonderful place, these are wonderful people."

She put her arms around her own middle, hugging his arms.

"I'm glad," she said  
"Flying is in my blood. I still want to do it, build machines… but, this place. I just love it. Sheeta it's like I've come home. I was once here. I know I was. Long ago."  
"I know my love. I've known that a long time. It's good to have you back."  
"All I have to worry about is the people who don't want me home."  
"Do whatever you need to do, _Paetsu_. I am always with you."  
"_Yau taemo. Yau al-dhu' ulve om._"

She lifted his hands from her middle and kissed them.

"All I want is to be your harbour."  
"And I want only to rest in you."  
"Come. Breakfast," she turned her head and smiled at him, "and the giving of gifts."  
"I know."  
"You do?"  
"Yes, Shuna said so, at the inn."  
"Hm, so he did."  
"I have something for you."  
"Thank you, and I have something for you."  
"Alright, let's go back."

He looked up again at the sunrise, the sun was well above the horizon now and too bright to look at. The mist in the fields was almost burned off. It was going to be another beautiful day.

--I--  
---o-o-oOo-o-o---  
I I

Everything these people did, they did it like they would die tomorrow. Pazu liked that, the commitment they put into enjoying themselves, the quality of even simple open fire cooking, the emotion of the singing and their dancing. They danced as though the last dance really was the last they would ever have. Those two days of _Suethelhin_ had an effect on him that changed him, he turned from an outsider to one who wanted to be inside, be a part of this life. He made a silent commitment to himself that he would stay here until the day he died, he couldn't think of anywhere he would rather be.

They shared a huge breakfast feast of simple food although this meal used exclusively food from the soil, vegetables and breads – no fish or meat at all. It was a recognition of new life growing, winter over, spring approaching. There were a variety of dishes. Sheeta named them but he couldn't recall the names, only the amazing flavours, the different heats and spices and sauces. It was a hot meal, hot flavouring. It warmed you up, and it made you thirsty.

So after breakfast people recommenced drinking, and the party went on all day. In the late morning he needed fresh air and he asked Sheeta to come outside with him. They walked through the village and down to the lake. Here there was a wooden quay and small fishing boats moored alongside. The lake was flat, calm and dark. The mountains beyond rising like the fortress walls of the gods. The place was almost deserted, just a few people around doing essential jobs, or like them, taking a rest from the party, a gulp of air before diving back in.

They sat on the wooden jetty and dangled their legs over the dark water.

"How are you feeling?" she asked  
"Tired. Not enough sleep. And crispy. I need a bath. Sorry, I'm not very nice close to right now."  
"I'll be the judge of that," she said, nuzzling her face against his neck, "Mmm… _Paetsu_ sweat, my favourite."  
"Oh, you're horrible."  
"And up here?" she tapped his head  
"Yes, positive about things now. I was very confused recently. Exasperated but now I want to face it all and get going, whatever happens."  
"What if it comes to fighting?"  
"You know I just can't believe it will. I don't think people are that stupid. And I am going to do everything in my power to not provoke anyone."  
"And how about here?"

Her voice was gentler, and she put her hand on his chest, over his heart.

"I feel fantastic, Sheeta. I'm home and I finally know I'm home. And I'm in love. And I'm ready to commit to you for ever. Be with me through this."  
"I will."

She leaned against him and hugged him.

"Hm, I have something for you, let me get it, come on."

She stood and held out her hand, inviting him up.

--I--  
---o-o-oOo-o-o---  
I I

They were back in the communal hall.

"Here," she grinned, "sorry they didn't have a box for it, so I got you a bag."

He took the black velvet bag. It was quite large and there was something hard and lumpy yet light inside it. He pulled open the draw string and put his hand in. He knew what it was the moment his fingers touched it. He drew the thing out. A trumpet. It looked like a good one too. He held it up and slipped his hands onto it, wiggling the three valves. They closed and came up again smoothly.

"Where did you get it?"  
"Penraeth. The first day when you were being questioned. There's a cleaning kit in the bag too. I don't know the first thing about trumpets. Is it a good one?"  
"I think so, and all the bits are there."

He looked at her warily.

"You're going to want me to play aren't you."

She put her hands behind her back and made big eyes at him.

"Well, alright then. But first," he reached behind him and picked up a brown parcel, "for you."  
"Oh!"  
"Surprised?"  
"Yes! How did you get time to get me anything?"  
"I asked a friend in the village to make it. She knew a lot more about these things than me. I just knew what colour and what decorations to have on it. Go on, open it."

It was a traditional Gondoan shirt. It was bright green and had a very deep vee neck with a wooden clasp to hold that closed which was carved in the shape of a mushroom. Around the stand up collar, the big cuffs and the hem was a decoration of heavy orange stitching which was made up of mushroom shapes and broad _Moyo_ leaves. There was a soft cotton orange rope belt. She unfolded it and held it up.

"_Poki_," he said, "and _Moyo_ leaves. To, uh, remind us."

He stood there, looking, smiling. She didn't know what to say, she was speechless, overcome. Concened, he said,

"Is it alright?"  
"Alright? Oh, _taeg-Paetsu_! Of course it's alright! Oh, my… it reminds me…"  
"I thought it would be a nice reminder."  
"Nice? Oh, _Paetsu_, our week in that cave. All the things you did for me."  
"Um, well."  
"You were so special. Everything you did," she looked from the shirt to him, looked carefully at him, "I mean everything."

He blushed.

"Um."  
"_Paetsu_, it's beautiful, so beautiful. _Yau taemo! Yau taemo-dhu_. I will always remember. When I wear this, I'll remember."

She was going pink now.

"I wasn't sure if you'd like it. I've not seen you wear that style of shirt yet..."  
"No, I'll wear it. It's perfect, wonderful. The colour – I mean where did you get the material?"  
"The lady who made it had to order the cloth from Restormel."  
"I'm not surprised. This is Laputan Royal Green. You simply _can't_ get it in Gondoa. No one makes it anymore, this dye hasn't been used in Gondoa for years and years. Didn't you know?"  
"No."  
"I am the only person allowed to wear it."  
"Really? You are? I had no idea. I just wanted the same colour as the costume you wore in Penraeth."  
"Those are my court robes."  
"I never knew. Have I made a mistake? Broken some rule?"  
"No, no, no! _Paetsu_, absolutely not, it's just lovely. The colour and the stitching. I'll wear it often! Who made it?"  
"Amadea, Shuna's wife."  
"I must thank her."  
"They have a new wind pump, by way of thank you. Although I think I got the better deal. So you're pleased?"  
"Yes! Oh, you lovely boy! Hug me!"

He did.

"Oh, uh, and it was quite difficult. I just couldn't decide…"  
"Decide? What between?"  
"The shirt… and this."

He reached down behind him and lifted a second parcel. Her eyes went big, bigger and rounder, big, wide white circles.

"Oh, no! I only got you one gift. You are so embarrassing!"  
"Open it then."

He stood back, looking smug, hands in pockets.

"You are spoiling me."

She tore the brown paper. Inside was something soft, made of blue material. A lovely soft, smoke-like blue, the colour of wood smoke on a summer's day.

"It was my fault we lost the old one. I think it must still be in my cabin."

She shook it out and held the dress up. It was exactly like the one she had worn the night they had met. She looked at him and suddenly couldn't hold it in any more, she was leaking with happiness. The tears came and she went to him and held him.

"Thank you. You are such a thoughtful person. I love you so much."  
"Least I can do."  
"I haven't got anything else for you."  
"Yes you have. Look around you. In this hall. In your farm, in your fields, in the woodland and from the top of the hill. This life is your gift to me. I accept it. It's the most wonderful _Suethelhin _gift I've ever had."  
"You've only had one _Suethelhin."  
_"And if I have a hundred more, this will still be the best."  
"_Paetsu_ – I don't know what to say. You'll make me cry again."  
"Just don't say anything. Let's party. I want to dance with you again."  
"Yes, lets. Lets forget all our worries and have fun."  
"Teach me more dances."

She looked at him, her smile cheeky.

"Alright, come on, I know some good ones."

She led him by the hand towards the dancers and for a few beautiful precious hours, they became like children again, and forgot.

_- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - _

_11 - __12 April 2007_

_For author notes about Chapter Forty Five, please see my forum (click on my pen name)_


	47. Chapter 46 : Wolf

**Chapter Forty Six – Wolf **

Early in the afternoon they were sitting on cushions, tired, mellow, full of good food, the _Suethelhin_ continued around them in its crazy, noisy, whooping, screaming, ale-swilling way. The frenzy of the night-time couldn't be sustained but this day was even more impressive and shocking – the partying wasn't quite so crazy but the fact that it just went on, and on was enough to frighten a newcomer. But Pazu could detect a different tone creeping in now. It was probably sheer exhaustion but he felt like people around him were enjoying themselves but being thoughtful about it too. Winter wasn't over and there were hardships to endure before spring brought a lengthening of the days, but hope was here and the fear of the night had passed.

Children played with their gifts, wooden swords, or hobby horses or fishing lines or balls and hoops or clothing, and the adults too showed their gifts among their friends.

Two of Shuna's friends, Torhpa and Peta had come and they sat with Shuna, Sheeta and Pazu and talked and joked. The men were telling Pazu about farming, how it was done here. The technicalities of shoveling yaoko dung. It wasn't a case of the way you did it, Peta was explaining, just that you had to do it all the time, and a big shovel helped, the hairy bastards made so much. Shuna was chuckling and Pazu suspected this was not so much a lesson for him, more of an entertainment for them. Sheeta suddenly spoke up.

"Oh, our yaoko! Pazu they'll need feed and water and cleaning out."  
"I'll do it. Won't take long."

He got up.

"I'll come help you. I can show you some real technique," said Shuna, smiling at Peta.  
"_Taemo_."

Shuna stood with him. He caught Sheeta's wink.

"Getting the hang of the language a little?" he asked Pazu  
"_Hai, a linhi_.(1)"

The two men went out. Sheeta smiled at the two brothers.

"Alright?" she said, "let's do it."

The two men grinned, and with the help of some others they got to work.

--I--  
---o-o-oOo-o-o---  
I I

It was nearly dusk by the time Pazu and Shuna had finished. Pazu stank, he'd been working fast and hard to get the job done quickly. He needed a bath but the fires were banked up in his and Sheeta's house, not hot enough to heat water.

"Come to mine, there's always a fire there. Hot water."

Pazu bathed at Shuna's farm and it was full dark when they got back to the hall. Just as they got to the doorway Shuna stopped.

"Oh, I left my drinking cup back at the farm. I will see you inside."  
"Alright."

Pazu lifted an arm to push the door open but it opened for him. He was about to say _taemo_ to the man inside but the word died on his lips. There were two men, dressed for hunting, one holding each door open. Leather caps, fur coats, hide skirts, leggings, boots, swords. He didn't know them. As they looked at him they both went down on one knee and bowed their heads. Puzzled, he stepped inside the hall.

It was silent. Full of people, but no-one was dancing, or singing, or playing music. No one drank, no one ate, no one laughed, no one spoke. They were all stood, silently watching. Watching him. He frowned.

_what is this? _

A group of men stepped forwards, they wore traditional shirts. He knew them. The four brothers. Bhema spoke, just two words.

"Welcome back."

The man took his arm, another of the brothers put a hand on his shoulder, a third tousled his hair in greeting. The four men led him, guided him towards the crowd. A lane parted between the people. Those at the front, forming the sides of the avenue, had candles. They lifted them up, the lit candles formed a golden pathway of light. A girl stepped forward, a sweet little thing she was, four or five years old. She lifted something in her hand. A circle of greenery, a crown of some kind. Instinctively he bowed his head and the girl placed the crown of winter berries, holly and ivy on his hair. She giggled, turned pink and ran off.

Down the golden avenue he was slowly led, on either hand people watched, silent and smiling. As he passed them they bowed their heads, those not bearing candles descending to one knee and placing their palms together.

_what on earth is this? _

The avenue ended at the hearth, and here Councillor Kamaesa stood, leaning on her strange twisted black stick. Her eyes were steady, she held the years, the centuries in her gaze. He began to understand. Pazu looked around. He could not fail to notice, to one side of the hall, against the wall where an open space had been cleared, two wooden seats on a raised plinth. The seats had high wing backs like thrones. They were black, the dirt of many seasons, of countless occupants, discoloured the wood. The floor in front of them was strewn with the boughs of fir trees, the sweet scent of pine sap was sharp in the room. One of the thrones was empty, the other, it did not surprise him to see, was occupied.

He gazed upon her and she on him. She wore the green shirt he had just given her, and her red hair was piled up on her head in a pretty tumbled style. Pinned up yet with bits hanging down and sticking out. It looked deliberate but was pleasingly natural and windswept. On her hair was a similar crown of winter greenery and sprigs of red berries. On her forehead was the carved wooden mushroom clasp. The vee neck of her shirt swept down and beautifully promised what lay beneath. On her breast lay the stone, softly glowing. Her knees were together, her hands lay on the armrests of her seat and her face was calm.

Somewhere a soft violin began to play, a dreamy gentle melody it was.

Councillor Kamaesa spoke. Within a few moments Pazu knew why. He also knew what this ceremony was and that the words she uttered were hallowed by the years. This was a traditional welcome. The _Furtuen Caemarth_ – the Feast of Homecoming.

"Friends, neighbours, loved ones, people. We meet here in celebration. What was gone away is returned. Who we said sad farewells to is with us once again. Who we shed tears for is come back. Cease the weeping, for today we know joy. Cease the lamenting, for today our songs are sung. No more say your poems, your art has brought forth flesh and blood. Still the prayers, for today they are answered. Endure the last of your thirst, for today we drink. Stretch out your fingers for today warm hands return to hold us. Be not alone and cold in your beds, for tonight they will be warm. For the traveler who was away we say welcome. For the boy who walked we see come back a man. For the lover who patiently awaits, we say hail the husband. To he who sought manhood we say, become a man, become one with us, become again of our village, become here in a place where you have worth. Man that returns we welcome you!"

She stepped back in front of Pazu and despite her age Kamaesa made a smooth low bow. Her tone changed, now she spoke not from custom, from duty. But from the heart. What she said now wasn't scripted because there had never been a _Furtuen Caemarth_ like this. And because these words were from the heart, so was his gaze. He turned his head and looked at the girl on the throne, the girl he loved. And as the words poured around them, so she looked at him. And as the room was filled with the old woman's words, so Sheeta's heart went out to this boy, this beautiful boy. She held him in her heart and knew she lacked nothing, not one thing, she was made whole.

"Friends, neighbours, loved ones, people. Today we celebrate not just a _Furtuen Caemarth. _Each _Caemarth _is special, each is a life full grown and come home to be fruitful and to be a part of this community. But over my years of serving this community there come certain days, certain events that are different. Special. Today is one. At the feast of _Suethehlin_ we welcome back a traveler for whom we have waited not one year, but many. The longest _p__ead-lth-u'or_ Gondoa has known is over. Not one year but seven hundred. Not one generation has withered awaiting this day, but thirty. Thirty generations of song, of prayer, of poem. We have many songs written just for this day, awaiting it. Wanting it. Today, in our sight those songwriters may be at peace for their work is done. Those generations are rewarded. None of them waited in vain. Those hearts broken in endless longing will beat again. In us. Today in us is the time come. Welcome the man. _Paetsu Fuhmonhir_ is no longer forgotten, no longer lost. He is remembered, he is found. We welcome him."

The old woman came forwards and placed her hands on his shoulders. For a moment she was close and he saw the depth of love and satisfaction in her eyes. This was a woman who didn't concern herself with Sky or Soil, this was a woman happy to witness, in her dying years, the end of a story too long in the telling. She surprised him by closing the gap between them and placing a gentle kiss on each of his cheeks.

"_Paetsu,_" she said quietly, something for only him to hear, "welcome home. Just be yourself, nothing more is needed."

She stepped back.

"And now, manservants, if you will, it is the time of cleansing and clothing."

Sheeta sat silently watching. Her mind could not help but be drawn to recall another boy, a sweet, kind, strong young man who had taken her heart and gone away and never come back. And today now, instead, she had this. Life was cruel and beautiful in equal measure. But now she was given a measure of the beautiful, and despite her ache for the one now lost she rejoiced in the one who was found. She said a sweet, private, silent goodbye to those lost and cast him from her heart. She opened herself to welcome the one who had come back.

Bhema and his brothers stepped forward. He spoke quietly, his mouth against Pazu's ear.

"Don't move. And don't be ashamed. Sheeta has told us about how you might react but please just relax, you are among friends here."

Pazu gave a small nod. He wore the clothes he'd taken from the farm, a dead mans breeches, a dead man's shirt. Pazu wore his old moleskin waistcoat and the now battered aviator jacket, his Porthaven boots – they too were showing wear. He was, he realised, a dead man walking. Walking home. One of the men bent down and removed his boots. Another slipped the jacket from his arms, a third removed the waistcoat. He was slowly undressed by the hearth, his skin warmed by the flames, his bare skin lit by the dancing light. Dark outside, the hall was lit by many candles but the main source of light was the big central fire, and near it stood the man, naked, his flesh coloured, flickering and glowing. The four brothers stripped him and cast away his dirty clothing, throwing it piece by piece into the fire, as each was consumed Councillor Kamaesa would say a word. Pazu knew the word "_emshieh_", end or finish, his traveling was symbolically complete, his journey over.

As his nakedness was revealed the young girls craned their necks to see, as did quite a number of the older married women. Nakedness was not a thing of shame for these people, but it was a thing of beauty, and none who looked upon the man would deny he was beautiful. A few girlish giggles played about the dark space. Standing sideways to the fire Pazu's silhouette on the wall showed that he was, truely a man. Sheeta sat, her hands gripping the arms of her throne and gazed upon him in wonder and delight. She knew him, she knew all of him and loved all of him, and now she knew she wanted to love him again, so much she wanted his love, and soon, like that first time.

Bhema and the others poured anointing oil over Pazu and with ceremonial sponges wiped his skin, the symbolic removal of dirt, of the old surface, of the dust of the long traveled road. The oil was scented, musky and fruity. Pazu stood with arms outstretched and he kept his eyes on Sheeta, wanting her to see him. For him she was the only person present, he and she were alone and he wanted her to look upon him. That sensation of needing to be seen, of wanting to be naked in front of her that he had experienced that strange evening by her bath in the Marinaen farmhouse came back to him. Hundreds of people were watching but for him they did not exist. He looked at her, at the shape of her front beneath her shirt and wanted to be close to her. He controlled his mind and his flesh, nothing changed - he did not grow. He knew that his body would not change, and was at least grateful for that. As the anointing oil was applied to his chest, his shoulders, his flat stomach, his haunches and his legs, she sat, a gentle heat moving inside her, looking at his skin, at the glistening oil in the firelight, at his body moving with the breaths that filled it. Although she wanted to lay with him tonight she chose to resist that and save that meeting for their wedding, whenever that might be.

The Councillor clapped her hands and the men stood back. From behind the crowd a procession of young women approached and stood in a line. In their arms each held a bundle. Bhema took a shirt from the first girl and unfolding it, Councillor Kamaesa touched the steel ball on the end of her stick against it.

"Clothe the man. Be this a cloth of tradition."

While his brother Khuaema raised aside the holly and ivy crown, Bhema lifted the shirt and drew it over Pazu's head, straightening it, adjusting and putting on a belt. He stood back. Khuaema replaced the crown.

Peta went to the second girl and took from her a pair of leggings. The Councillor blessed them.

"Protect the man when he walks, preserve his skin by these wrappings."

Peta knelt before Pazu and applied the long grey cotton strips around and around his legs, even to high up under the shirt. Despite the intimate contact, still Pazu felt no shame. That surprised him. Peta finished his task and stood.

Torhpa took something from the third girl's arms. And the Councillor blessed this also.

"Warm the man when he rides. May this hide be protection in the saddle."

Torhpa stood before Pazu and fastened around him under the shirt the knee length soft hide riding skirt. It was a creamy yellow colour and oils had been applied to it so that it was soft and flexible, like chamois.

The last of the brothers went to the fourth girl and from her arms lifted something dark and shiny. The Councillor blessed this in turn.

"_Haemshi _of status, worn by men, by this show this man to be who he is."

Khuaema took the coat, the long robe and standing behind Pazu slid it onto his arms and shoulders. Coming around in front of him he linked the gold chain at the waist and the robe stayed open. The _Haemshi _was beautiful. It was made of dark grey cloth shot through with grey silk so that in the light it shimmered like deep water, like a lake under the black mountain. Stitched around the collar, across the breast and back and around the hem were silver and bluish threads that formed clouds, billowing stormy nimbus, nimble thin soaring cirrus and fluffy storybook childhood cumulus. It was a work of art, and it was plain that here, in this dark hall stood the Sky. The Sky was come down among them.

Shuna appeared, and he walked to the last girl. Kissing his eldest daughter's forehead he took her load. A pair of soft ankle boots. Not high riding boots, not for travelling but ones for wearing in the home, comfortable and light. The boots a man would wear when he came home. The big man nodded to Pazu and knelt at his feet. He did a strange thing. Dipping his fingers in the vessel of ceremonial oil and coating them he lifted Pazu's feet in turn and wiped the warm oil over them. Pazu looked down at Shuna's head. He had only just begun to know this man, yet by this act of service he knew Shuna was a man he would get to know well, a man to be trusted and leaned on in times of need. Here, after Sheeta, was his first friend. Shuna slipped the boots onto his feet. He stood and taking Pazu's hands in his own, he like Councillor Kamaesa before him, kissed Pazu on both cheeks.

The five girls filed away and the five men also. The Councillor came forwards and placed the last, the completing symbol on him. She held a circle of gold, a coin-like filigree disc some three inches in diameter. By way of a catch she linked it to the _haemshi_ chain. She stepped back and loudly spoke.

"Bruaendell! Behold! A man is come back!"

A great cheer rent the air and people clapped and came forward and hugged him. Children danced about and women kissed him. Men slapped his back and shook his shoulders.

"_Paetsu Fuhmonhir _is no more. He is no longer forgotten but returned. I name you _Paetsu Rhaeahul_,(2) the Prince who returned. Take your seat."

He walked through the crowd, the people holding his arms aloft. At the edge of the carpet of pine boughs the crowd stopped and would go no further. Pazu stepped onto the green springy floor and walked towards the thrones, towards her. She stood and stepped down from the plinth and held out her arms. He went to her, the last two or three steps they each took at a run and they came together and held tight, squeezing like they would never let go. More loud cheering filled the hall. Sheeta raised her head from his chest and looked at him.

"Welcome home my lovely boy."  
"_Yau taemo, Lucita_."  
"Oh, my, you look wonderful. I want to eat you up!" she beamed at him and led him to his seat.

--I--  
---o-o-oOo-o-o---  
I I

A small table was placed before them and food and drink served. Music began and songs were sung and dancers danced. He grinned at her and she at him, they talked about things that concern only the happy, that concern only lovers, two people who plan to be wed, things that don't concern us. The rest of the gathering dined and drank also and as was their custom, soon the place became rowdy and hot and vibrant with life. There was as yet no communal dancing, this festival was a controlled thing, the music and dances and songs were carefully arranged and were of a certain type, celebrations for a homecoming. After the meal the music ended and the Councillor again stood beside the carpet of winter greenery.

"Quiet, please, may there be silence, silence for the newest man in Bruaendell. _Paetsu Rhaeahul_, pray, speak of your journey."  
"It's traditional," Sheeta whispered in his ear, "you tell us of your year away and most importantly, what you have learned, what changed you, what was important."  
"A speech? I make a speech?"  
"Hm."  
"I didn't go away for a year. What do I say? That doesn't apply to me."  
"Say whatever you like, whatever is important. Go on, stand."

He did so and the cheering died away. He looked around the room, at the expectant faces ruddy in the firelight. What to say? He had no idea. Nervously he found his hand was on the filigree disc. He lifted it and looked at it. It was a simple design, an airscrew, a multi-bladed propeller, the six blades linking the outer wheel to a central boss. To them it was his symbol. Something came to him. He drew in breath and spoke.

For the next hour he talked, he told them simply everything, his whole story. His youth, his work, his family, his fathers dreams of flying and his own, of finding the fabled Laputa. He told of one night last year when his life was changed by the girl sat beside him, how she came into his life and together they experienced a whirlwind adventure. As he spoke the small children came and sat on the green floor in front of him, two dozen of them or more, their little faces lit with wonder. Their boundless imaginations took them on trains and into caverns and up into aeroplanes and floating in the sky and they were chased by pirates, none of which, even though it sounded marvelous, they understood. He spoke of a journey that led through danger and discovery, through tragedy and destruction. He told them of his journey here, of life on a farm, of life traveling in freezing autumn rain and through mud, of sleeping in woods and fighting men with guns (the boys seemed excited, the girls merely puzzled). He told of the piteous debris of war, of the stupidity of men. He told of a flight of escape in a flying machine and a week spent hiding in a snowy forest where he healed a sick girl and she told him about them, about their village. The girl lay in her bed and told him all about _you_ – he looked down at the toddlers and they gaped in awe "_us?_" their eyes said.

"Yes," he smiled, "I know all about you, Sheeta told me everything, so don't be naughty, I know what you get up to."

They looked fearful and some of them turned around seeking their mothers. He spoke then of a hard walk through the forest and of meeting two Gondoans with whom they ate and journeyed on and so came over the wintry hills and home.

Then he talked of flying machines and men's dream of flight, of steam engines and great metal monsters higher than a house that roared and spit flame and dug holes in the ground big enough to build this hall inside (the childrens eyes were wide as saucers). He spoke of ships on the sea and a forest that floated in the sky and a mechanical man and flowers and fantastic animals.

And finally he spoke of here, this village, these people. He spoke of good food and warm fires and welcoming arms, of cattle and crops and friends, of children. He ended by saying that he had journeyed far and seen many things but at the end of it all he had come here and prayed and had his pain taken away. He had seen a sunrise this morning that had filled him with more wonder than any of the things he had experienced. He ended by saying that of all the marvelous things there were in the world the best was right here. People. A community. Friends. And love. Especially love.

"Hold on to these things, for these are what life is really about. Especially the last."

To the little children he said, "Love your mothers and fathers and friends, love your brothers and sisters. And when you grow up find a special friend and love them, marry them and enjoy life, that is the most important thing of all."

He sat down. Sheeta looked at him, her eyes wondering what this might mean. For a moment there was silence. Then people began to clap. There was more clapping and someone stood up, another did and then another until the whole hall rose to its feet and the applause became a roaring, rushing thing. Sheeta put her hand on his and held it, stunned that he would place friends and family and loved ones above his love of flying.

"What did you mean?"  
"You know, as of yet, I'm not sure. If I do build flying machines I will always be at home here."  
"I watched you with the children," she smiled, "you will make a great father."  
"Soon," he looked at her, "I want to."

The music began again and the songs and the dances, but before them there was one song that needed to be sung. By singing it the girl was making a public commitment. This song, these words now and these gestures told the crowd that she would marry this man, she welcomed him home, not just to her village and her farm, not even just to her arms, but hidden in the song was a message the adults understood but the children didn't. She was offering him everything, all that she was, even herself, especially herself.

Sheeta stood and spoke to the musicians and a tune began, a gentle rhythm on a deep drum, then a lute and a violin, a melody grew and flowed around the hall. Sheeta called for four of her friends and the girls stood by the glowing hearth and sang not words but a sweeping series of notes, girlish and smooth, their sweet voices swooped and hummed like a caress. Then she walked to Pazu and taking his hands in hers drew him from his seat and walking backwards in front of him pulled him onto the green floor. She let go of him and began to dance. To the violin and lute, to the girls voices and the rhythmic drum she danced around him. She was an earthy, a gentle and flowing thing, white legs and green cloth, flaming hair and sparkling eyes, slender hands and dainty feet. He watched her, as she passed before him he would reach out and they would briefly hold hands. She turned on the spot and ran and swayed and the music ran through to its end then began a second time. This time Sheeta did not dance but stayed in place, although not still, she swayed to the music and sang. She sang not in Oistrakh-Auera but in the language Pazu knew.

He listened and remembered. He remembered a cave. And her then, that night.

I'm here where the daylight begins  
The fog on the lamplight slowly thins  
Air on the air is the way  
The safety of islands fading away

Fly your sky  
Meet your storm  
All I want is to be your harbour  
The light in me  
Will guide you home  
All I want is to be your harbour

Fear is the brightest of signs  
The shape of the boundary you leave behind  
So sing all your questions to sleep  
The answers are out there in the roaring deep

You've got a journey to make  
There's your horizon to chase  
So go far beyond where we stand  
No matter the distance  
I'm holding your hand

Fly your sky  
Meet your storm  
All I want is to be your harbour  
The light in me  
Will guide you home  
All I want is to be your harbour

When she finished singing all he could do was hold her in his arms and say _yes, we will, as soon as we can_.

Later in the night, when they were tired and things were quieter she asked the violinist and the lute player and two of the whistle players to play a certain tune. Pazu didn't know it, but it was very mellow and gentle and delightful on the ears, like a delicious caress. There wasn't a single harsh or discordant thing about it. He sat on his throne, a drink in his hand and Sheeta came and knelt in front of him. She sat a while and they merely looked, let their eyes enjoy each other. Then she knelt up and tilted her head and kissed him, and staying close and singing quietly, she sang him this.

You are much burdened  
With the earth of a hundred nations in your skin  
You didn't recognize me  
For the light in my eyes is strange

It was years ago, I know  
When he strained to tell me your whole truth  
That you were not mine to save  
That you could not change

Would it be enough to go by  
If we could sail on the wind and the dark  
Ride on storms in the middle of the night  
And not pull us both apart

Would it be enough to go by  
If there's an isle flying 'gainst the tide  
Would it be enough to live on  
If my love could keep you alive

I've seen a lot of castles  
I've seen a lot of whirling sky machines  
But it doesn't matter any more  
They are crumbled in the winds of change

So I turn back to breathing  
And I learned a few good reasons to cry  
And I finally caught hold  
Of you when you were far away

I'll carry the weight  
I'll carry the weight  
Of you I swear  
I'll carry the weight  
I'll carry the weight  
Of you

Would it be enough to go by  
If we could sail on the wind and the dark  
Ride on storms in the middle of the night  
And not pull us both apart

Would it be enough to go by  
If there's an isle flying 'gainst the tide  
Would it be enough to live on  
If my love could keep you alive

So will you let me come in  
Just as you find me  
With the soil around my blood  
I offer a mere dream  
Breaking through my ice

Your voice in its anger  
I only want to see if I can shake you out of sleep  
And bring you out onto this flooded sky  
To be mine

So carry the weight  
Carry the weight  
Of me in your arms  
Carry the weight  
Carry the weight  
Of me

Would it be enough to go by  
If we could sail on the wind and the dark  
Ride on storms in the middle of the night  
And not pull us both apart

Would it be enough to go by  
If there's an isle flying 'gainst the tide  
Would it be enough to live on  
If my love could keep you alive

If my love could keep you alive

If my love could keep you alive…(3)

He knew what she was saying. He knew she could offer him nothing, and was nothing enough? He had visions and dreams and desires to be different, his past made him different, and he wanted to make a difference. She had none of that, she merely had herself and was offering all she had. Her love. Was it enough?

Pazu sat and wondered. Was it? Was there anything more on this earth that he craved? He thought hard, and slowly, at the end of this long day, these two long days of wonder he found his answer.

"That was beautiful. Is that an old song?"  
"It's an old tune, it's very traditional and lots of love songs have been written to that tune. But no, it's not an old song. I wrote it, a few days after you arrived here."  
"Thank you, Sheeta, it's lovely. Your love means a lot to me. More now than I think it did before."

--I--  
---o-o-oOo-o-o---  
I I

The celebrations continued into the night, long past midnight. They danced together and he even played his trumpet, happy, bouncy lively tunes. Very few of the Gondoans had heard a trumpet and some of the small children were frightened by its noise. He could, however make it sound mellow, gentle even by using a baffle of cloth lightly pushed into the horn.

But eventually weariness crept over the party and it ended, winding down at it's own pace. Some carried on, some slept, the last few drinkers gathering at one end of the hall while the floor was littered with sleeping families and couples embracing in their dreams.

--I--  
---o-o-oOo-o-o---  
I I

It was dark and the candles had burned low. He sat up. The hall was full of snoring slumbering people, in a far corner a group was talking. A small group still stood at the bar drinking. His full bladder demanded attention. He lifted her arm off him and got up, stepping carefully over people. He pushed open the hall doors. Outside the door three men were talking in low tones and smoking pipes. He nodded to them and went across the lane to a cluster of bushes.

It was a very dark night, among the blackest he'd known. There was low overcast, no stars, no moons and the breeze made it bitterly cold. He did what he had to do and turned to go.

Something caught his eye. There was a fire burning a little way into the field beyond the bushes.

_who has a campfire lit tonight of all nights? when we are all inside? _

He looked at it uncertainly.

In the hall Sheeta turned over and reached for him. She mumbled in her sleep.

_no, come back _

Pazu moved through the bushes closer to the fire, there was someone sitting beside it, his hands held out, warming himself. Sheeta moaned.

_stay away. it's him _

The man by the fire was tall. Even hunched over, sat on a box, Pazu could see he was a big fellow. He wore a big hairy Gondoan travelers coat and boots and he had a leather cap on his head. His breath plumed out in the darkness.

"Come closer friend, 'tis a cold night to be alone, eh?"

The tall man turned to him, but the peak of the cap cast a shadow over his features, preventing Pazu seeing his face. He had a deep gruff voice. Pazu stepped out of the bushes.

In her sleep Sheeta's eyes moved behind her lids, to and fro they fretfully swept.

_paetsu, please no, he'll take you. don't let him take… I don't want to lose you _

"Come talk with me. We have a lot to discuss."

He stepped forward.

_you have a lot to discuss with me? who are you? I've never set eyes on you before. _

"Good. Come into the firelight where I can see you."

_and I can see you_, thought Pazu.

_no,_ Sheeta called out, _no Paetsu, he will take you._ Her fist closed, gripping, holding, trying to pull him close to her, to hold onto him.

"You know, Forgotten Prince, Prince of Nothing, I could have you. If I wanted. I could take you now, right here. No-one can hear us. Not if they were stood right where you are standing could they hear us. Just you and me here Little Lost Prince. Now if I were to take you, the Princess would remain a Princess and wouldn't fall. She'd be sad of course, but what's a broken heart in return for peace across the land, hm? The little squabbling men need no longer squabble and there will be no fighting. Sure, I'd lose out on all of _them_, all their nice warm little lives, so much I love them, I do. Their tasty little warm bodies. But, you see, instead I'd have _you_. And that would be a fair exchange."  
"I know you…" Pazu stared at the dark that hid the face, knew the hoarse voice.

A bead of saliva hung down from under the cap. Pazu watched it hang, fascinated as it slowly lengthened. Then a tongue came out and down from the hidden face, a long lolling tongue. It swung and slurped the string of saliva back up and the man licked his lips and smacked his chops. Like a dog smelling a good meal.

_no, no. this can't be. you're a spirit, a made up story man. you're not real… _

Pazu was sweating, shaking.

"You think you know me?" _Maerth-dhu_ asked him, "But do you? Do you really?"

With a large clawed paw he pulled the leather cap from his head and his wolf ears sprung out. He stood up and Pazu had to tilt his head right back to keep looking at the dog-man's face. He had to be nine or ten feet tall. He bent his head down low towards Pazu. His dog breath stank.

"You know, Princey Boy, I don't think you do know me. Not really. If you did, you'd know yourself. You see I could take you now, but I won't. And do you know why? Because I don't need to. All the death and sorrow and hate and orphans, you know what? You are going to do my work for me."

He smiled and his long yellow teeth showed in the firelight.

"And me? I'm going to sit right here and enjoy the show. I don't need to do my work. I am you and you are me. You are from the caverns too, like me. Just like me. And like me, you kill well. I've watched you. One here, one there, the random touch of death. Hm, you're good. And you're going to get better. Oh, much better."

_dream… it has to be a dream… nightmare… all that food… Pazu, wake up. wake up! _

The disgusting stinking face came down close to Pazu, closer than he could stand. The fetid breath gusted warm into his nose. Pazu retched, he was going to be sick. The dog-man's breath was the stink of death.

"And you owe me, Prince Boy. At the farm, that dead family was my payment. That Bitch and I made a deal. You two get to rest and have a nice lovey time together and grow stronger. I get the family. It was a good deal. Me and the Bitch do deals all the time. I bet that shocks you, hm? The way of the world lad, the way of the world. Life and death. It all comes around. But you said that stupid prayer! And the Bitch heard you and kept back a life. She went back on her agreement with me. And do you know what? That pisses me off no end. So now, all this will be your fault."

He smiled a disgusting wide grin, yellow teeth and dangling saliva.

Pazu was going to vomit. Or pass out, his head was spinning…

_no, none of this is real… nightmare… wake up… _

"Off with you now, run off back to your warm pretty little princess. And her warm pretty skin. Enjoy her while you can, she might be among my haul of little fish this year. Her instead of you, eh? Hm, I expect she tastes lovely and sweet..."

His foul breath gusted into Pazu's face and he staggered back, covering his mouth and nose. Pazu turned and ran through the snow and

_wake up! wake yourself up _

He was through the bushes and splashing along the muddy lane when he tripped and went forward. That awful feeling of falling in your sleep, down and down.

_and down. falling  
_  
He jerked awake, his nerves and senses jangling.

"_Paetsu, Paetsu_, what is it? A dream?"  
"I. Uh. Sheeta…?"

He was wet through with sweat, shaking.

"You bumped into me, woke me… were you dreaming?"

He sat up.

"Yes. Yes. I must have been. I, uh…"  
"Are you alright? Here, drink this."

She offered him a wooden beaker of cool water and he gulped it dry.

_a dream. just a dream. my god. I've never had a nightmare like it. _

"Sheeta, I'm alright. Just a nightmare."

He lay back down. The hall was quite active, a lot of people were moving about, a group were playing music, some were even dancing. Much livelier than in his dream.

_just a dream _

"Come back to sleep."

He turned to her and she gazed at him. She lifted her hand and lay it on his face, stroking. He put his arm around her and drew her close.

_my god_

"Sheeta, hold me."

--I--  
---o-o-oOo-o-o---  
I I

It was morning. People were bustling, clearing up. _Suethelhin_ was over. His _Furtuen Caemarth_ was over. She was by his side, curled up fast asleep. He looked at her. He kissed her hair.

He sat up, went to put his boots on. It was then he noticed his feet. They were caked with mud. Mud right up to his shins. He lifted the sheepskin covering. Dried mud was everywhere. Why were his feet so muddy? He had a vague recollection of waking in the night, waking Sheeta up and having a drink of water. Had he dreamt? A bad dream? There was something there on the edge of his mind but he couldn't recall it. Some sort of dream, he could feel it. Feel it slipping away. He reached for it and it infuriatingly skittered beyond his grasp. He shrugged and got dressed.

_- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - _

_12 - __16 April 2007_

_(1) Hai a linhi "Yes, a little."  
(2) Rhaeahul return, one who has returned  
(3) __Vienna__ Teng – Enough To Go By_

_For author notes about Chapter Forty Six, please see my forum (click on my pen name) _


	48. Chapter 47 : Book Of Days

**Chapter Forty Seven – Book of Days **

"Oh, _Paetsu_, I completely forgot."

She slipped out of bed and disappeared down beside it, rummaging underneath. He sat up and looked over the side at her. Only her white back was visible, and her bare bottom, sticking up. He wondered what she was doing.

"Here, hm, it's heavier than I remembered."

She dragged something out from under the bed. She knelt up. He wasn't watching what she was doing, he was just watching her. Lifting it with difficulty she heaved the box up onto the bed. It was a large casket, as big as her wicker laundry basket. She plopped it down and from the bedside cupboard took out a key.

"Here. I suppose you should have it. It can be your second _Suethehlin_ gift if you want."

She knelt on the bed and he pushed the covers off himself and knelt up with her. The ornate box had a keyhole, he opened it.

The book. The one she and her friends had taken from the library under the cliff when she was a child. He reached into the box and lifted it out. It was huge. The same dimensions as the four or five he had brought out of the forest but much fatter, several inches thick. Six inches thick. It weighed several pounds. Sheeta slid the box out of the way and Pazu put the book on the bed.

"It's enormous! Why did you bring such a big one?"  
"Oh, you know. Kids. We thought the biggest one we could find would be the best one. And it has pictures in."  
"How did you get it home?"  
"We just took turns. It was hard work I can tell you."  
"I can imagine."  
"We built a sort of sledge out of tree branches and dragged it."  
"That was very resourceful of you."  
"Remember the oldest of us was fourteen, a man. He made the raft thing."

He opened the strange glass-that-was-not-glass cover and flipped the peculiar thin soft flexible pages. There was a title page and then lots of columns of small script in a list. He turned the pages. He saw a picture that puzzled him. It was a man but he had no face, his head was big and round like a bowl and he had no eyes, nose or mouth. He wore a tight fitting set of overalls and out of his chest three cables hung. They were connected to the front of his overalls by universal joints. He'd seen similar flexible couplings on the Ravine's railway engines, vacuum brake pipes or steam heating pipes. These were similar. Why would a workman in overalls need steam pipes attached to his clothing? And what was it with the man's face?

More pages, then he came across a picture of a flying machine, but it was nothing like his father's, or any of the warships he'd seen last autumn, or Dola's flaptors, or even Goliath. It was small and three men were sat in it. It was slim and long and shaped like a pencil. It had no gasbags so must be a heavier than air craft yet it had no propeller either. The men seemed to sit in a cockpit but somehow inside the thing, like they had a window over the heads, a hatchway.

With growing interest he flipped more. Then he came across something truly startling. It was a flying island, he could tell it was because clouds were depicted around it, above and below. But it wasn't like Laputa because there was a whole city on it with houses, domes of meeting halls, chimneys of workshops. And most amazing of all there were fields and woods and hills and farms and even a lake. It was like a complete floating country. He was stunned. What size crystal would be needed to make this fly?

"I need to get dressed. I want to try and check some of this against the dictionary."  
"I'll make breakfast."

Sheeta got off the bed and put a long shirt on.

--I--  
---o-o-oOo-o-o---  
I I

He put his pencil aside and rubbed his aching wrist, took a sip of cold tea. It was late afternoon. He'd been sat before the fire in the parlour all day. He rubbed his eyes and his aching shoulder. He was stuck. He'd made the discovery that he couldn't count in the Oistrakh-Auera numbering system. He'd come across a section of the cuneiform script that seemed to be talking about the flying islands but there were some markings that he thought were numbers, yet he didn't know the common alphabet conversion of Gondoan numbers. Sheeta had taught him a lot but for some reason they had both forgotten to teach him how to count. He got up and went into the kitchen and through it to the back door. He looked out at the garden. Sheeta was pulling up winter vegetables.

"Are you busy? Have you got a few minutes?"  
"Nearly done. I'll just put these in to soak and be right with you."

She wiped her hands and sat next to him at his folding drawing table.

"Here, the title: 'Book of Days'. And another word underneath. It's a history probably. These little lists of figures at the beginning are dates I think, numbers, years. But I can't work those out yet."  
"Whose history is it?"  
"Haven't got that far. But it seems to be about just one island. This one."

He showed her the picture he'd found that morning. At the bottom of the painting (or was it a photograph? He couldn't decide) was a series of markings that he had managed to translate but the word made no sense. In Gondoan it read 'Ahmtuillian' and he'd found out that this was an ore, a type of mineral from which metals could be extracted. Against the name was a set of words that he felt sure were numbers but he couldn't translate these.

"That's on the title page," she piped up, eagerly.  
"It is?"  
"Yes, those two cuneiform characters are the same as the ones on the front."

They checked. They were. The title of the book was "Ahmtuillian's Book of Days".

"How do you count in Oistrakh-Auera?"  
"We only have the numbers one to ten and repeat them as needed. So we'd say eighteen as 'ten and eight', thirty as 'three tens'. Fifty eight would be 'five tens and eight', see?"  
"Yes. And a hundred?"  
"Oh, sorry, yes. It gets messy after a hundred, so our word for hundred is _hrullendt._ It literally means 'all the tens'. After that it just becomes _dhu_ or great or many."  
"A thousand?"  
"Yes. I suppose so."  
"Count me through it."  
"_Toelle, palo, temse, furten, hiven, shriden_ (she pronounced the letter 'i' in these two as an 'ee'), _sheptre, aout_ (she pronounced it 'oot'), _nhelth, hrulle _(this word came out as 'her-ruler')."  
"That's one to ten?"  
"Hm."  
"So…"

He flicked the pages of the dictionary. It took a while. He scribbled notes. Chewed his pencil, compared the cuneiform symbols to Oistrakh-Auera words. It got dark and Sheeta got up and lit an oil lamp, put wood on the fire. Pazu finished.

"_hrulle ue hiven_ – ten and five – _shriden hrulle_ – six tens – _sheptre_ – seven. That's, hm, fifteen sixty seven. Just a bit over three hundred years ago."

He scratched his head.

"Well that can't be right. The flying islands came down over seven hundred years ago."

Sheeta gave him an odd look.

"We don't use the same years as you, you know. Not the same calendar."  
"You don't?"  
"No. Didn't I say so before?"  
"I don't think so. But then we've not talked about dates and years have we?"  
"For you it's 1878 isn't it?"(1)  
"Yes, well, 1879 now, as of three days ago."  
"To me it's the year five thousand eight hundred and seven."

Pazu stared at her, his jaw dropped open.

"You're playing about?"  
"No, honest. If you don't believe me, go and ask Councillor Kamaesa."  
"Five thousand eight hundred and seven?"  
"Yes, we count from the discovery of the levitation properties of the crystal. Before that we can recount another several thousand years, I don't recall the details. Kamaesa might."  
"Well that means…"

Pazu did a quick sum on a scrap of paper. He put the pencil down and rested his head in his hands. His head suddenly felt very funny, light and fluffy like he would soon get a headache.

"This picture shows the flying island Ahmtuillian as it was four thousand two hundred and forty years ago."  
"Yes. Does this surprise you?"  
"Yes! Of course! I was always thinking in terms of seven hundred years ago when the flying islands came down. I never thought how long they were up there…"  
"Oh, yes, ages."  
"So this book…wow, Sheeta - it's _ancient_."

Suddenly Pazu realized what he'd found. A society dating back thousands of years earlier than he'd ever considered. And they had heavier than air flight that used some sort of gas or air propulsion because there were no propellers, and some kind of air or heating hoses in their work suits. Perhaps if it was very cold somewhere their suits were steam heated? And that meant steam engines thousands of years ago. In the library under the forest was all manner of fantastic information. He had to get back there and recover it, translate it. His head began to spin.

"What is this bit about?" Sheeta asked.

They looked. For a while it made no sense, then Pazu realized the text was describing the number of islands, of which Ahmtuillian was one.

"What is a thousand?"  
"We don't have that word – just _dhu_. Many."  
"Well this is sixty again - _shriden hrulle. _That kind of makes sense. You said there were about fifty flying islands. But then we have '_dhu_' for many. Many sixties."

He frowned.

"It's sixty thousand," Sheeta had a strange tone in her voice, almost like fear.  
"No," said Pazu, "it must mean 'great' in this context. Sixty great islands. The four capital cities, the castles, being small."  
"No."  
"How come?"  
"The way it's written. The _dhu _comes before the sixty. With _Maerth-dhu_ and _taeg-dhu_ and _taemo-dhu_ the 'great' comes after the noun or statement, making it "wolf great", or "idiot great" or "thanks very much". Here the 'great' is in front of the number, so a great sixty, or a thousand sixties."

He looked at her. Her face was pale and he knew his must be too. She put a hand up over her mouth.

"_Oh my god. Paetsu_. There were sixty thousand islands."  
"This can't be right. It's talking about this island, Ahmtuillian."  
"Ahmtuillian is a workshop island," she said, "a working city. Of the Hand."  
"Only one of the four kingdoms."  
"So if there were four equal sized kingdoms…"  
"_Two hundred and forty thousand islands_…"

He stood up. Her hand still covered her mouth in surprise and wonder. In shock. He put his hands on her upper arms.

"Sheeta I have to spend longer translating this but it looks like there were once a _quarter of a million_ islands."  
"Where are they all now then? They all came to earth. Are they under the sea?"  
"I don't know. If Ahmtuillian is a normal sized island then they would make a huge landmass if they all lay side by side."

Something odd was occurring inside Pazu but he refused to entertain the thought, it was just too crazy.

"Wait here."

She ran out of the room and went upstairs. In a moment she was back, carrying a book.

"One of my poetry books. I know it's here somewhere. Yes, here. This is an ancient poem, very well known. Listen:

I cannot stand upon the sea  
For that is all there is near me.  
A world of water how can that be?  
There needs be land, make them see.

The islands are swimming in the air,  
Make them change, make them care.  
Their load too great, none can bear,  
Make of them a land, wide and fair.

Men are distant, each a hawk.  
They fly to meet, they fly to talk.  
Join up the lands, let no man baulk,  
Across their borders let them walk.

We talk of war, we push, we shove,  
But peace we crave, fly forth the dove.  
If ever flying in skies above,  
How can the nations ever love?"

Pazu turned to her.

"Bring that book. Come with me."

He went in the kitchen and through the door into the grain tower. He took for them animal pelt coats and dressed her and himself. He led her up the internal ladder past the drying bins and up through the trapdoor. They climbed out onto the roof of the tower. The sky was glowering and dull, it looked like snow again. To their right the black deep lake and across it the mountains just visible in the darkness, their white flanks shining. In front of them the river lay in its valley, the silent snowy woodland glistening in the faint moonlight that came through the overcast. To their left, although they couldn't see it in the dark, the hill where three villages had stood three days ago and seen the sun come up. Behind them, the firelight, the lamps and the sounds of their village.

"Read again," he said.  
"I cannot stand upon the sea  
For that is all there is near me.  
A world of water how can that be?  
There needs be land, make them see."

He looked out over the land, as far as he could see. He knew then that this had once sailed in the air. All of it. Even the lake and the mountains.

"Sheeta, the whole world is made up of fallen islands. Before the flying nations came to earth the world was just ocean. The islands came down, no, they were _flown_ down, _manoeuvered_ down and joined together and became the continents."  
"My head is going to burst. Surely then, that means…"  
"Yes. Everyone alive today is descended from the flying nations."  
"And all the countries, including Numenaor, and the Ravine are islands."  
"Where are the crystals? They must be huge to lift such large landmasses."  
"Deep underground I suppose."

Pazu stood at the crenellations of the tower and watched the night. Sheeta came next to him, slipped her arm though his and they leaned together, their minds in turmoil. For Pazu something suddenly jumped out at him, something important.

"Gondoa is irrelevant then. The Sky and Soil thing is nothing. Flying people all over the world have embraced industry and science and flight again already, the only place that hasn't is… here. In Gondoa."  
"Where I live."  
"I think that might be relevant."  
"I wear the only existing royal crystal. I am the last living queen."  
"It's you, Sheeta, it's you. Something that royalty is doing."  
"Not me _Paetsu_, the stone. The stone is alive. It doesn't want science and flight, it wants a sleepy rural farming nation."  
"Why? I don't get this at all."  
"Unless we're wrong."

It began to snow, slow, fat, fluttering flakes. Sheeta laughed and stuck out her tongue and tried to catch them. Her arm remained tucked in his, and Pazu, as a flake came close and her tongue reached for it, pulled her so she missed it. He did this a few times until in mock anger she slapped his arm away. They stood and watched the snow. At her throat the stone fluttered also, glowing blue like the moon.

They wondered what they had discovered, but even without grasping any detail, they knew it was important.

_- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - _

_14 April 2007_

_(1) In the movie, if you look carefully, there is a date on the photograph that Pazu's father took of Laputa. That date is July 1868. Pazu being sixteen, I have set this story ten years after that. _

_For author notes about Chapter Forty Seven, please see my forum (click on my pen name)_


	49. Chapter 48 : Island

**Chapter Forty Eight – Island **

He stood on the hilltop, on the mountaintop and looked around, the cold wind blew, his clothing and hair became like the sail of a ship, buffeting him. He looked at the world around him, he seemed to be very high, high enough so that he looked down upon the land from a great height. It was night and the moons were full and in perfect conjunction, the smaller above the larger and around him the hills were painted with their blue light.

He was under the land, underground in a cavern, deep in the rocks of the earth. Here too there was blue light, the moonlight reached even here, it must pass through the bones of the mountains and illuminate the world inside.

He was on the land again, in a field. He was on an island that was not an island. This island wasn't surrounded by sea or the sky but by the land, he could feel it joined to the land around it by an invisible join, a thread, a link, the thinnest most fragile line. He could feel the line running through the rocks under the earth and grass. One good strong pull would tear through the turf and the island would lift away from the land. He could step across the join and leave the island but he didn't want to. He wanted to be here, separate from the world. Here he could fly.

The stone was around his neck, it was warm, it held the heat of her blood, of her gentle flesh, he could smell her on it, her pungent earthy girl smell, a little spicy. The smell that made his heart complete whenever he remembered it. The stone was heavy, too heavy for him to stand upright. He couldn't hold it up, it was too much for him. He bent down, collapsing under its weight. On hands and knees he was at the edge of the land, the stone hung on its leather string dragging him down, an impossible burden.

The stone lit up with blue light, moonlight. In the ground in front of him he saw a blue line, invisible under the soil, cutting through the soil, the blue line ran away from him to left and right, impossibly fast it went, breaking the land along it's boundary in a huge circle, carving the island out of the land. He was kneeling right on the border between here and there, between island and world, between him and her.

He looked up and she was standing on the land. She wore her blue dress. She looked as perfect as she had the night he had first seen her. She had the face of an angel and his heart went out to her, but tears were running down her face. Beside her stood a hairy yaoko and she was in a field of wheat, the golden sea swirling around her in the wind. In her hand she carried a bucket full of soil.

"_Paetsu_, I cannot go with you, my place is here, my life is here."

He called out to her but no sound would come. He struggled to stand up but the stone held him down, he could not move and he could not speak. He shouted at her _come with me_ but even though he threw back his head and screamed at the top of his lungs, no sound came. The island was lifting, a beautiful scar ran around the island, the turf tore and rich soil ran from the edge of the scar, the ground lifted, a roar like doom filled everything with its booming sound. Where he knelt began to rise, to lift into the sky.

Still he screamed at her to join him and still she stood, her tears flowing, regretting that she could not. He lifted a hand and reached for her. With her free hand she tried to reach him. Almost, nearly, they were nearly touching. He stretched until it hurt and then he felt her fingers. For one beautiful moment they touched. The pads of their fingers exquisitely pressed together and they had love for each other so strong it would hold the world together.

But it was too late, the world was tearing, the island was rising and he was leaving. Their fingers parted and he rose with the island, up, up into the sky, far up into the blue moonlight leaving a great raw hole behind. In the hole were thousands of bodies, a mass grave. Soldiers, farmers, women, children. Inside the island there was a crystal. A crystal the size of a house, it made the crystal that kept Laputa aloft seem puny. This was a crystal of power, the power fed into him and he into it. They were one, the Forgotten Prince and the flying island. He shouted at her to come, there was still time but she didn't hear him.

The last thing he saw was her face, her streaming tears, her raised arm growing tiny with a distance he could not close.

He sat up in bed, shouting, sweat clammy and slick on his body. He gasped and choked in breath, his chest heaving. He put his hand to his ribs and felt his heart pounding. He put his face in his hands and moaned. Again. The dream. Again.

"Whassit? What?"

Next to him in her sleep she murmured and turned to him. She was unclothed and her throat was exposed and he saw the beautiful soft valley of her where it lay. The blue stone lay in its perfect valley. It was glowing faintly, inviting his touch.

"It's alright, just a bad dream. Go back to sleep."

He got out of bed and padded naked to the window. He opened the shutter and looked out at the night, across the walled yard to the sloping lakeside field and the lake, black and still under the dark mountains. Under the moonlight. The hills in the moonlight stood and silently watched him.

He breathed deeply, slowly calm returned.

"Just a dream."

Again, night after night.

_- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - _

_3 April 2007_

_For author notes about Chapter Forty Eight, please see my forum (click on my pen name) _


	50. Chapter 49 : Hills of Moonlight

**Chapter Forty Nine – Hills of Moonlight **

The bow of the little boat crunched against the gravel and Pazu jumped out into shallow warm water. Wading ashore, he pulled the rowing boat up the stony beach a little way, stowed the oars and grabbed his knapsack. He turned and looked up the slope. Steam was wafting up over the trees and he set off up the hill in that direction.

It was a week later, and Pazu had found out more from the books, enough to convince him the world wasn't as he thought. He sat, one morning, breakfast plate untouched in front of him and discovered his whole life was turning upside down. Everyone was descended from the flying nations. Everyone. And all of them had embraced flying and steam engines and motor transport and engineering and science, except here.

_why?_

"What is happening today?" she asked  
"Do you need me to help with anything?"  
"No. In fact if you don't, it would be best."  
"Oh?"  
"My month is starting again. If you're not near me I can't snap at you."  
"Would it be alright if I went across the lake?"  
"Are you going down the caves?"  
"Yes. Or at least have a good look around."  
"I've never been down the caves, but I'm told that, you know, they're not caves. You know what I mean don't you?"  
"As soon as Shuna mentioned them, I had an idea about that. He said there was a volcano under the mountains. My thinking is, if these caves aren't caves, then the volcano isn't a volcano."  
"Be careful. Don't go in too far, and don't do anything silly."

He looked at her, raised an eyebrow.

"Last time I looked I was still a miner. When it comes to holes underground I know what I'm doing."  
"Mines don't have big fires in them. These caves do, to make the lake warm, the hot springs. Just, please, hm, be careful?"  
"I will. Your boat in the shed, it doesn't leak does it?"  
"Not when I used it last summer, but there is a tin of caulking pitch and some cotton waste in there so you can pack any holes."  
"Have you any string or rope?"  
"Yes, loads, the crop bailing twine. It's in the storeroom under the drying bins. And… well, something tells me you might need this."

She reached into her shirt and drew out her stone.

"Sheeta, are you sure? I've never taken it away from you before."  
"I think I trust you. By now."

She made a small smile.

"Now get away from me before I nag you for not eating breakfast."

He scraped the scrambled egg onto a slice of toast and took a big bite.

"I'll be back after dark, can you put a light on top of the tower?"  
"Of course. _Please_ be careful."

_what's the matter with her? month end worries I suppose. _

--I--  
---o-o-oOo-o-o---  
I I

The shore opposite the farm was a sheer cliff, so he turned right and rowed across to the sloping tree lined shore a little further up the lake. The hot springs were not hard to find, steam issued from them and they could be seen for miles in the cold weather. While snow lay on the rising ground in the village, on this shore, low down there was none at all, just a little on the trees and then no more until much higher up the mountain.

At the hot pools he stopped. He had never come across anything like this before although they reminded him a little of the salt factory's drying ponds. They were large irregular shaped depressions shallow, perhaps only two or three feet deep but the water was warm, in some of them it was hot and there was an odd smell, not exactly nice either. He could imagine the villagers coming here to bathe, it would be very pleasant, providing the pool temperature didn't change and boil you alive.

In some of the pools there were bubbles coming up in the centre and they looked deeper there. He hadn't come here to bathe though, another time perhaps. He continued up the slope towards the treeline where he could see the cliff face that further along formed the sheer lakeshore.

He came across the caves, they were not hard to find although the first three he went in had collapsed roofs a short way in. Then he found a more promising one. He found a stout bush at the cave mouth and tied one end of the bailing twine to it. He lit his lantern, checked the stone around his neck wasn't doing anything too odd and went in.

After a while he was in blackness, but he wasn't afraid, this was a familiar environment for him. Unlike the cave in the forest, this one didn't feel man made. It had a tapering narrow roof that closed to nothing at all, like a natural fissure in the rock. The floor was uneven and tilted all the way in, no steps, no archways, no carvings that he could see. After a few hundred feet of steady descent he knew he was in a natural cave.

He stopped and closed his lantern hood. The stone was making its normal gentle glow but nothing unusual, and no sound at all. He pressed on. He came to a junction where a smaller passage went off to his right, more steeply down. Just to be doubly safe, in case his twine should break, he took a chunk of chalk from his bag and scratched an arrow on the wall, pointing back to the entrance. He turned right.

He came to a cavern with a pool and there was a lot of water here, dripping from the roof. He found mineral growths on the floor and ceiling, he'd come across these only a very few times before at the Ravine and only in caves on the edge of the workings where men had yet to dig. The miners destroyed them quickly in their need to get the floor leveled or widened to allow ore tumbrels to be wheeled along, so it was rare to see this many. Some on the floor were broad and stumpy like fat piles of yaoko dung, while others were slender and spiky and delicate. In one place he found a section where the ceiling spikes hanging down had almost, almost joined to the floor ones growing up. The cavern was thirty feet high here and looking hard he found one pair of spikes now separated by only an inch. As he looked a drip of water fell from the upper one to the lower and deposited its miniscule load of minerals closing the gap by another tiny amount. He sat back in wonder and just watched. Drip. Drip. Slow drip. Tiny drip. Eventually the gap would be closed. Probably not even in his lifetime, but eventually. It was a certainty. Watching this slow certain progress he took a slice of _poto_ bread and a _bomao_ cake from his bag and ate, then drank cold sweet tea. He got up, time to press on.

He had been walking, crawling and climbing for hours, time was always hard to judge underground and distances were very deceptive. Had he prepared better he could have tied knots in the twine every few hundred yards and kept count but he had a good internal clock and sense of direction and he thought he was now deep under the mountain, still moving away from the lake and about three hours since he'd started. Eleven o'clock. His lamp had been doing something odd in the last ten minutes though, the flame seemed to be burning whiter, the light around him was paler. He was standing at the base of a slope of loose rubble, having slid down a kind of chute and reached a flat dirt floor. A pool and stream ran in front of him from left to right and this wider cave led away to his right, the floor mostly flat.

He pulled the stone from his shirt to check again and saw, to his surprise that its glow was much stronger. He shut his lamp and found himself in a blue world. Lifting the stone up its light was now enough to see by. He extinguished the lamp. Putting his hand tightly around the stone he concentrated. Nothing. No vibration, no sound. He pressed on, the underground stream on his left.

After a hundred feet or so the dirt drift ended at a wider corridor and there was a jump down here of three or four feet to the floor of the transverse pathway. The stream to his left plunged down its own chute and he could hear it roaring below him. Making sure he could get back up, he nimbly jumped off.

And then it all began to happen. First the stone became much brighter, not as bright as the _lirhum_ spell but he certainly wouldn't need to draw a light spell from it, it was bright enough to light this corridor for twenty or thirty yards. The noise also started, a low hum, not unpleasant. Even with the rushing stream nearby he could hear the hum. The hum wasn't the stone either. And it was warmer here, in this corridor. He took out the chalk and scratched an arrow pointing up at the side hole he'd jumped from, and to be certain another on the floor pointing to that wall.

He stood and closed his eyes and for a moment tried to just be calm and still and see if anything came to him. He could feel the floor wasn't quite level, to his right was a little downward slope. He opened his eyes and turned right.

He couldn't help but be reminded of his dream. The blue colour was the same.

Another different thing here was this corridor. It was definitely a corridor. The floor was smooth, the sides vertical, the roof arched. This wasn't a cave. His heart beating faster, and beginning to work up a sweat in the hot air

_was it hot, or just warm? hot, yes, it was definitely hot here. as hot as a hot spring _

he strode on down the painted corridor, the walls, he now noticed were coloured, greens and blues, lines stripes and dots, curves and whorls. No straight lines here, this was a female corridor, curved decoration everywhere. That was an odd thought but unimportant. He pressed on.

The stream must be in a channel of its own behind the rock wall now because he could hear it rumbling and throbbing behind the stone on his left. He put his hand to the wall and felt it vibrating. The stream must be channeled under pressure to make that much vibration. The sound it was making was changing too, a deeper note. He could feel it through his boots as he walked.

When he first reached the cavern he didn't understand what he was seeing. The blue light from the stone leapt up suddenly in brightness and seemed to paint the wall to his left. Pazu looked up. It was a big cavern, much smaller than the library in the forest but bigger than anything in the Ravine. The noise was strange though now, no longer the throbbing of a stream pulsing under pressure between rocks, it reminded him more of a big engine working hard, bigger than the Tiger Moth's, definitely, maybe as big as Goliath's he thought. It felt as though it were all around him, the rocks themselves were vibrating

_running, that's the word, like an engine, a mechanism running _

and he felt a pulling on his neck. He looked down and the stone was dancing, jittering on the end of its cord, actually _bouncing_ against his skin. It was warm and making a light noise, buzzing like an insect.

Pazu was a man with a strong will and he was brave, few things ever made him afraid, but there was something here, something that was so unexpected, so big, so powerful that he began to feel fear, real palpable fear. For a start it wasn't just warm now but hot, like he was stood within a few feet of the old Clunker's boiler when it was running at full pressure, when it was burning with life, the pressure needle dancing on the red line. He was boiling hot down here, sweat was pouring off him.

And there was something about the way the blue light from the stone was lighting up just one wall that particularly unnerved him. He took a few steps from the end of the corridor into the cavern, and it was then he became frightened, there was no doubt about this emotion. He had never been more scared in his life. Because he felt a presence, he felt like his entry into the cavern had attracted someone's attention

_no, something's attention _

and it was looking at him, he felt like a great eye was upon him. And more than that, he became aware that he was present in a conversation between two entities. The stone around his neck buzzed but with a higher tone for a moment, then a lower tone. Then it stopped and began again, lower, higher, cutting off and going on.

_talking, it's talking, my god, it's talking to the cavern _

The deep rumbling vibrating tone would also change pitch. Climb and sink, drop off then rise in intensity and richness of tone. It boomed deeply like the biggest drum. Pazu put his hand over the stone to shut off the light. But the light didn't shut off, it continued. And he was in his dream, in a cavern deep underground, a cavern filled with blue moonlight, the moonlight shining down from the sky onto the blue hills and passing through them, right through the bones of the land into this cavern and lighting it up.

_except, except that… _

The blue light wasn't coming down from the sky into the cavern… it was being created here and going up and out. The hills of moonlight were being lit up from _inside_. From this cavern. With the stone at his neck held tight in his fist

_and struggling there like a trapped panicking mouse _

it emitted no light. The cavern itself was emitting light, or rather one side of it was. And sound, and heat. The wall to his left was flat and inclined beyond the vertical, it was about the height of the side of their farmhouse and quite smooth, like a rock had split down a perfect fault plane, a perfect slice of smooth rock like a giant slate. This giant slice of slate that formed one side of the cavern was tilted forward so the cavern was wider at floor level and narrower at the roof. And it was blue, glowing gently blue. All of it, the whole wall was like the tiny crystals of stone Uncle Pom had shown them in the cavern at the Ravine, but this was just so much… more. In every way it was more, bluer, smoother, purer, hot, droning and much more frightening.

_its… _

his mind could hardly grasp it, could hardly believe what his eyes were telling him was true

_it's a crystal… _

he saw the evidence above him, high up at this end of the wall. The crystal that kept Laputa aloft had been eight sided, it was two four sided pyramids joined base to base. Up there high near the ceiling near the wall he had entered the cavern by, he could see a point, an angle. He studied it carefully and his engineer's eye showed him what a perfect angle this was. His eye saw a horizontal line running near the roof of the cavern, above that line the face of the upper pyramid of the crystal sloped back and disappeared into the rock, up beyond the cavern roof. At the angle he'd noticed, he could just see the ends of the left hand faces of the upper and lower pyramids but these faces were almost completely buried in the mountain, merely a foot or two of each was exposed.

_so…oh, my god… _

He was only seeing one face of the eight and only half the crystal's full height. He looked up. Yes, their farmhouse would easily stand in this cavern, making the crystal twice as big as a house. Maybe even twice the height of the grain tower. The crystal that held Laputa aloft had been no bigger than his ribcage, this crystal was

_hundreds of times bigger. how big an island would it carry? _

Pazu suddenly felt faint. Weak, physically drained. Wondering how much landmass this crystal had once kept aloft, flying in the sky while men lived on it made his mind start to come undone, he could feel it giving up, refusing to attempt to calculate the mass. A huge island, a whole slab of countryside – certainly the mountain and the lake and the village. But… how much more? The river valley? The other two villages over the hill? Bhema's village? Penaerth?

The thought that this island might extend a days ride across and include Penaerth made his knees buckle and he sank to the floor of the cavern. And worse still, the most frightening thing was, unlike the dead dusty library island, this one was alive, the whole wall of the cavern was aglow and worst of all, it was _talking_, it was having a conversation with Sheeta's royal stone. It _wanted_ to live, it _wanted_ to take flight. An insane thought went through Pazu's head, what would speaking the destruction spell do here? His mind saw the mountain, the lake, the village and the hills and woods lifting off, held up and floating away. But under that was the whole world, like the fat mechanical dome of Laputa that housed the Great Weapon, it would collapse and disintegrate and fall off, leaving the island in flight.

It was that image of destruction that finally got him moving, it was too awful to contemplate, he staggered upright but

_in my dream, just like the dream _

he struggled to stand. The stone on its cord hung down from his neck and seemed to pull hard, seemed to want to hold him here. It wanted to stay. He had no idea what it wanted to do here, what conversation it was having with the cavern but he'd had enough. With an awful groan of effort he stood and turned and staggered out into the corridor, the booming, buzzing, groaning voice of the mountain behind him in the blue-black.

He found the side corridor, boosted himself up and managing a shambling, drunken half run, he fled.

--I--  
---o-o-oOo-o-o---  
I I

He remembered nothing of his run back, and the journey back down the hill was a blank but he must have run and slipped and fallen because his knuckles, palms and knees were torn, bleeding and bruised with hard contact with the ground. Even his protective leg wrappings were ripped to pieces. And one of his palms was torn with pine tree splinters. He beached the rowing boat and dragged it up the gravel bank and went up the dark hill to the farm. As promised she had lit a beacon, a brazier of some kind on the tower roof. He went in through the side gate behind the yaoko shed, dumping his gear in the equipment store at the base of the tower.

He went into the parlour. Sheeta was sat by the fire, she stood up in alarm at the sight of him, filthy, sweaty, his clothing torn, his knees bloody.

"_Paetsu_! What happened?"

He collapsed in a chair and she knelt in front of him.

"I'm alright. Alright. Fine now."  
"Shuna, please get some water. And _you_, my filthy friend, tell me what happened."  
"Later, later. Ugh."

Pazu noticed Shuna for the first time. The big man went into the kitchen and he heard the pump running. The bearded man came back with a wooden beaker of water which Pazu gulped down. It was deliciously cold, icy cold.

"Hm, _taemo._ _Al-dhu, puhlko_.(1)"

Shuna went out and refilled the beaker.

"Your hand! Look at you, what a mess! Shuna, can you help me get him to bed. I need to make up a _timsu_ compact and put it on that hand."

--I--  
---o-o-oOo-o-o---  
I I

Pazu lay in bed, undressed and with a cold cloth on his brow. Sheeta sat at his bedside, his wounded hand in her lap, pulling shards of pine tree bark out of the torn flesh with a pair of tweezers. He couldn't feel a thing, the crushed _timsu_ compact had deadened the pain. He didn't like the look of his hand though, it was bloody and lumpy. It looked like a bowl of overripe strawberries.

_reustaub, reustaub stimmer… _

he thought, looking at her face. He loved her flavour and her full red lips looked like strawberries; the _timsu_ was not only deadening the pain but sending his mind off as well.

"_Paetsu_, don't go wandering off yet! Shuna has some news. Oh, for heaven's sake! Stop fussing like a baby, give me your hand," she sounded cross.  
"You are lucky you have such a skilled nurse _Paetsu_, you will need that hand tomorrow. You are going for a ride. To Penaerth," Shuna was leaning against one of the bed posts, his arms folded.  
"Penaerth? Why?"  
"The Gathering, they have reached their decision. Sheeta and I will be with you. We need to be on the road before dawn. I will stay here tonight, my bags are packed."  
"Oh, damn. _Taeg-dhu Lucita!_" she cursed herself, "_Oh_, I've started bleeding."  
"Sheeta, stay with him. I will pack your clothes. I assume you will want your ceremonial robes?"  
"You are right I do. And pack _Paetsu's haemshi _as well please."

She put a hand to her belly and squeezed, bent over a little, grimacing against the sharp pain.

"Oh, _hell_. This is all I need."

_- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - _

_16 April 2007_

_(1) puhlko : please. In this context Pazu said "Al-dhu, puhlko" meaning "please everything". What he meant to say was "more, please" or "Pulko al-ur". _

_For author notes about Chapter Forty Nine, please see my forum (click on my pen name)_


	51. Chapter 50 : Bloodline

**Chapter Fifty – Bloodline **

On the ride to Penaerth Pazu told her about what he had found in the caverns. Sheeta was silent for a long time.

"I never _knew_. What does it mean?"

He shrugged.

"I think we know now why your stone has been growing in power. That thing under there must be another Laputan crystal. Yours knows it's close by."  
"They were _talking_?"  
"I'm sure of it."  
"How can they? They're just rocks."  
"Clearly they're not. They're somehow alive."

She shook her head in stunned amazement.

"Paetsu, if engineers and scientists find that – well, there'll be no stopping them."  
"Or Gondoans who want to regain the knowledge of flight."

She looked at him sharply.

"You?"  
"Sheeta, I just don't know. That _thing_, is just so huge and so powerful we can't touch it right now. I felt as though it somehow wasn't happy, it was angry somehow. I don't think anyone has the right knowledge or machinery to do anything with it now. In years to come scientists might invent a way to dig it out and harness its power but right now – even in our lifetimes..."

He looked away, over the fields and farms. He held his right arm about her but his left he let hang loosely, the pain-deadening effect of the _timsu_ had worn off and it was throbbing badly.

"Right now, men should just avoid it," he concluded.

After another pause, she went on, as though talking to herself.

"What were they talking _about_?"  
"Do you think your stone can understand you? Us? Or at least your emotions?"  
"I suppose it must in a way, the magic is made by speaking, and by having a strong intention in your heart."

As if by instinct they both looked down into her thick riding coat, to where, hidden under her clothes the blue stone lay against her skin. Like something sleeping. Or perhaps like a child that pretends to sleep late at night, but is really awake and listening to its parents talking of things of which it is not supposed to know.

A thought came to him.

"Gondoa is divided into provinces is it? Or counties?"  
"Hm, six counties."  
"Where are the borders of this one?"  
"The Parlement buildings have a map in the main office. I'll show you."  
"You know, if what we think happened hundreds of years ago is the case, then there will be other huge crystals like that around. People are simply going to find them. There's no stopping them."  
"Urh, this is hurting my head. As bad as my stomach."

--I--  
---o-o-oOo-o-o---  
I I

The map on the wall of one of the public rooms of the Parlement annex showed the county of which Bruaendell was a part. It was a large place containing upwards of twenty villages and three towns, thousands of square miles of land. Too big, Pazu thought, to be an island. Although he had no way to measure what 'too big' was, it just didn't feel likely. But within the county, within all Gondoan counties were the parishes. These might contain one main village and two or three others. The parish in which Bruanedell lay was called Suethelmae and it contained the mountain, the lake and the three villages with the solstice hill between them, and upriver a small town after which the parish was named. Pazu looked at the dotted boundary, it was almost egg shaped. Something about that shape worried him.

--I--  
---o-o-oOo-o-o---  
I I

They sat in wooden seats, facing each other across the debating chamber. Befitting her royal status, Sheeta sat on a large throne that itself sat atop a raised dais. Shuna, designated as her servant, stood behind her chair. Pazu, thirty feet from her, occupied a smaller chair. He was unclear why this seating arrangement had been chosen, for him it represented division, a way to show they were not the same, separate. Or to keep them from talking about anything. Whatever the reason, it bothered him. He looked at her, again in her formal clothes she looked magnificent and today with the blood dot bright on her forehead mirroring her bright _ueshonai _there could be no finer looking woman in the land. She did however seem pensive, and her face seemed sad.

The Chamberlain spoke:

"_Pazsu o-Numenaor_, please stand."

He did so. Sheeta saw a perfect man. Tall, his hair now over-long and shaggy and down over his eyes and shoulders. Still he had not yet had it cut, and still his chin remained smooth. Was he the sort of man who never grew a beard? That was very unusual but by no means displeasing to her, she liked his smooth jaw, loved to trace her fingers along it, and her lips. Today he wore plain raw silk _hakkaemi_ and _puorthtemi, _the flat grey-straw colour contrasting with his deep brown-red hair and the beautiful dark grey-silver of the _haemshi. _His _ueshonai_ waist cloth was a deep russet orange, matching his soft low boots. He presented quite a different presence to the Gathering than he had a few weeks ago. Even the bandages on his hands and knuckles seemed to make him more masculine. And just looking at him made her feel quite, well, _unnecessary_, was the word that came into her head. He _affected_ her, she decided, in a powerful but pleasant way. The way he looked made her want to squirm in her seat.

"Due consideration has been given to all the evidence, spoken testimony from all witnesses, topographical features of distances and places, and the written evidence from the log of the air-liner Menandaer.

"First it is not conclusive by means of studying your character, _Pazsu o-Numenaor_, whether you are descended from _Pazsu Phom o-Latormolo_. We have records detailing his birth, his youth and many of his speeches are recorded. The first three generations of his descendents can be proven beyond doubt and from these persons we can build up a set of characteristics of the kind of children and grandchildren he had. Your character fits this pattern well, but unfortunately so does that of countless men, this alone is interesting but merely circumstantial.

"Your family history is however, interesting, especially your fathers trade of flight and his sighting and subsequent passion of Laputa. Your love of flying is not of especial interest, it merely comes from him. However _Paetsu Phom_ was a skilful aviator, so this points in your favour,"

She paused, "It does, however, merely point. Again, circumstantial and not proof."

She then discussed the fact that _Qu'elle Lucita Toelle Ur Laputa_ had been saved from certain death from falling by the royal stone and that, it was conclusively proven by the places and the log of the Menandaer, she did not, in fact float vertically down but had, it seems, drifted sideways over eighty miles to Slag's Ravine.

"This, so far, is the strongest factor supporting your claim…"

_wait a moment… my claim? I'm not making any claim. you people asked me to come here so you could decide who I am. you're making this sound like my fault. my greed… _

"…however, once again, alone it is not proof. It is possible that the sentient crystal might have selected you as the most able, the person with the most potential to be of succour to Her Highness."

Pazu wasn't accepting this, it was silly. The stone had come to him and he had later drawn two spells from it. Yes, each single thing alone might not be proof, but taken together the evidence built up and up.

"Moving on now to the Tepis Fortress incident, we find it interesting that _Pazsu Romuska Palo Ur Laputa_ did not recognize you. However, nothing more can be drawn from that episode.

"And now, considering the events on Laputa itself, it is again of interest that you were able to pilot through the storm. We felt initially that this was a strong point in your favour. But further discussion made it a possibility that it was the presence of Her Highness in your craft that permitted this successful circumvention of this obstacle."

Pazu looked at Sheeta. Her hands were fists and they were clenched on the arms of her throne. She was clearly incensed by this… rubbish they were spouting. Sheeta – a passenger in a glider he piloted, when he had had the vision of his father leading him down a safe passage through the storm? He thought up a very rude word to describe the people who had thought up this nonsense but he kept his outward appearance calm. He began to have an inkling of how this would end. He kept his face calm however and tried to show Sheeta this, so she would draw strength from his response.

The Chamberlain pressed on.

"We come now to the incident in the forest in which Her Highness claims you drew a healing spell from the stone and later fed her a medicinal broth known only to Gondoans. After long deliberation we concluded that the spell of healing was drawn from the stone by you, _Pazsu o-Numenaor_, and the finding of the broth ingredients was, to say the least, an extraordinary achievement, a thing simply not credible had it happened by chance. The incidents in the forest are therefore your strongest witnesses. They do, however, have no independent corroboration."

She lifted her head very slightly and looked at Sheeta.

_what are you suggesting? that Sheeta lied? that the Queen of Gondoa's testimony isn't trustworthy?  
_  
Pazu's blood began to boil.

"The Gathering did note, _Pazsu_, that you omitted to say anything of this episode during your testimony. That did seem strange to us and we were unable to check Her Highness' testimony against yours."

_yes, they think she's a liar…  
_  
"However, we come now to the second spell drawn from the stone by you, in the _tumurh_ of _Shuna o-Bruaendell_. We have here two independent witnesses, and although the various testimonies do not all match in all regards...

_I bet they don't, do they Keya?  
_  
...it is clear to us that the four accounts are describing the same incident and that incident involved a spell of light drawn from the stone by you alone."

The large red faced lady gave Pazu a slight nod, like she was a schoolteacher being nice to him when he didn't deserve it. He responded with a stony stare.

"We discussed the episodes at the border inn and at the farmhouse in Bruaendell. The things that struck us about these events was your strong character – forthright, able, outspoken to the point of carelessness, brave to the point of foolhardiness, sound leadership; all traits that _Pazsu Phom_ displayed, not all of them wisely.

"The evidence of history is not contradictory, the evidence of character is strong, the evidence from the Menandaer's log is compelling, the evidence of the _poki-moyo_ broth is surprising, the evidence, however, of the spell drawing is, in our view, final. This Gathering therefore concludes, beyond all reasonable doubt that you are who you say you are. _Paetsu o-Latormolo_."

Pazu looked at her. Had he just heard right?

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_3 April (mostly) & 16 – 17 April (some polishing) 2007 _

_For author notes about Chapter Fifty, please see my forum (click on my pen name)_


	52. Chapter 51 : Smile

**Chapter Fifty One – Smile**

There was a long pregnant pause. What now? Ring the bell? Sheeta and Pazu looked at each other. She let a small smile light up her face. It played delightfully there and it warmed his heart but it was the last one he would see on that face for a long time. It came and went so quickly that he later had to tell himself it had really been there. He had to dig into his memory to recall it, but yes, for a few beautiful moments hope had been there, resting in her heart. Then, like a small bird disturbed by a prowling cat, it flew away and was gone.

Because the Chamberlain had spoken again.

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_16 April 2007_

_For author notes about Chapter Fifty One, please see my forum (click on my pen name)_


	53. Chapter 52 : Sorrow

**Chapter Fifty Two – Sorrow **

"However…"

_hm, yes, there is always a however, isn't there chamberlain? everything must have a however. isn't that the way it is…  
_

"It is with heavy hearts that we must qualify our conclusion. You _are_ _Paetsu o-Latormolo_, the evidence we have weighed makes that clear. You _are_ of royal blood. But you cannot be accepted into Gondoan society as royalty because you were barred. When _Pazsu Phom_ was banished seven hundred years ago he lost his title and he was disowned. His descendents, although of his blood and although able to draw spells from royal stones and do any number of unique and special things, are not royalty. They cannot assume the mantle of titular position. They are all disowned. With considerable regret I must officially state that although worthy of bearing the title _Paetsu o-Latormolo_ you cannot do so. This Gathering recognizes you only as _Pazsu o-Numenaor_."

Carefully, choosing her words with meticulous precision, the Chamberlain continued.

"There is only one way you can be welcomed back into the royal families of the four nations. A King or Queen, the ruler of one of the houses must recognize you. If that happens your bloodline is restored."  
"Who is alive of the four houses?" Sheeta suddenly blurted out.

The large black-haired woman pushed her glasses down her nose and looked over them at her.

"The Head and the Heart are dead. Their royal families are no more, died out. You, _Pazsu o-Numenaor_, are the only known descendant of the Hand, but all your kinfolk are also disowned. Even if one were present that would serve no purpose, for a disowned prince or princess cannot recognize one of their own house."  
"What are you saying?" Pazu asked  
"There have been, in recent times, only two known living royal family members: _Qu-elle Lucita Toelle __Ur__ Laputa_ and _Pazsu Romuska Palo Ur Laputa_."  
"Muska is dead."  
"Yes. His body was washed ashore near Porthaven three weeks ago."  
"Which means…"

Pazu looked at Sheeta. She stood up, took a step down from the dais onto the floor of the council chamber.

"I can say it!"  
"Sheeta."  
"I can recognize you _Paetsu_!"  
"Sheeta, wait…"

Pazu stood, there was something she had to see, he had to show her…

"_Paetsu_, all our troubles will be over, you will be Prince. Everyone will recognize you. You will be home, again. You will come home. To me…"

Her eyes were bright and damp with hope.

"Sheeta, no. You can't say it."  
"Why?"  
"If you do… then half of Gondoa will recognize me, the Sky."  
"Yes!"  
"But half won't. The Soil won't accept me. Do you see? Seven hundred years of discontent, argument will boil over again. Half of Gondoa against the other half."

_I don't need to take you. all the death and sorrow and hate and orphans, you know what? you are going to do my work for me _

_what? where the hell did that come from?  
_  
The florid woman watched him carefully. She saw that he understood. Something hot and frightening was uncoiling inside Pazu. Something stinking and dog-like came bubbling up in the bile of his mind. Where had this memory come from? A gravel voice and an evil leering snout…

He pressed on.

"Sheeta, don't recognize my bloodline. You can't. That way those who are of the Sky will not have a leader, no-one to follow and Gondoa can stay as it is now, of the Soil where it should be.

_a sunrise, a beautiful dawn, a peaceful farm, a simple people farming the land, simple prayers, simple gods, giving simple gifts. this is what I want. I know that now…  
_  
"Peace, a peace that may only last a generation or two but at least in your lifetime, Sheeta you will not know change. The scientists and engineers are coming, they will eventually, they will bring their machines. But not yet. Let Gondoa stay as it is."

_I don't need to do my work. I am you and you are me... hm, you're good. and you're going to get better. oh, much better...  
_  
_no you bastard! I know you. I won't let you! not through me, you won't use me to do evil! do it yourself you foul sick…!_

"_Pazsu o-Numenaor_, there is something you need to know," the Chamberlain spoke, her voice tired.  
"What is it?"

His mind couldn't handle much more of this. And anyway, he was talking to a dog in his head.

"A member of one of the four royal houses can marry a member from another, or a noble commoner, a Lord. But a disowned citizen is not a suitable match. If you are not recognized by _Qu-elle Lucita_, she cannot marry you."

Pazu stared at her. What? How could this be so, now, right now when they had gone through all this? He looked at Sheeta. She stared at him, her eyes filled with longing.

"_Paetsu_."  
"My dear Highness, my child, he is not _Paetsu_, but _Pazsu_. The prince who is gone away. The prince who is lost."  
"Damn you! He's not lost! He's here! Home where he should be! How can you be so… so stupid! So cruel!"  
"These are the laws my child."  
"I'm not a child!"

Pazu stepped forward. He walked to her and stood, taking her hands in his. They seemed so small, so fragile.

"Sheeta, if you marry me," he could hardly speak, his heart ached in his throat, "If you marry me you must first recognize me. If you recognize me, Gondoa might be thrown into civil war. It may even be destroyed."

She stood, hardly believing how sick and twisted history could be, how stupid could people be, dust for seven hundred years in their graves, and still interfering, still banging a hollow drum like an angry spoilt child. History stamped its spiteful foot at her, and wouldn't let her play. Pazu sank down in front of her onto his knees. He put his arms around her waist and pressed his face to her middle. He breathed in her smell, her beautiful earthy spicy scent. He wanted her, yet he could not have her. If he had her, they might be the figureheads of opposite sides in a war. The world was insane.

He pressed his lips to her soft belly. Spoke against her.

"Don't do it. Don't recognize me."  
"_Paetsu_…"  
"Don't say that name. He doesn't exist. I am _Pazsu_, the Prince who went away."  
"We can live together, not married," she was desperate, clutching at straws.  
"Sheeta, no. How can that work? People will always plot and scheme, people might kidnap you and under duress, force you to recognize me. It would go on and on, we would never have peace. I want you to have rest, and like that you never could."  
"Without you, how can I rest?"

Sheeta took his arms from her waist. Her knees bent and she slowly sank down into a pool of fine robes, a circle of pure green silk and ornamental brocade. She fell against him. She held him and he held her.

"_Yau al-dhu' ulve om_."  
"_Yau taemo. Yau ulve om_. Uh, I don't have the words, but I love you more than you can know."  
"Pazu…" Sheeta crumpled. She became very small and burst into tears.  
"Don't cry, Sheeta, please don't cry."

Fate was bending around them, cruelly reversing and turning. The princess and the simple miner, the girl and the boy, the prince who was lost and who had now come home, the princess who was home and had now become lost. Sheeta wept and his words this time were no use, the girl in his arms sobbed, she moaned. Her world was ending.

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_3 April (mostly) & 16 – 22 April (some polishing) 2007 _

_For author notes about Chapter Fifty Two, please see my forum (click on my pen name) _


	54. Chapter 53 : Winter

**Chapter Fifty Three – Winter**

The black mare walked slowly along the hillside, just below the crest of the ridge. The young rider was a skilled horsewoman and skilled in fieldcraft. She kept her mount below the skyline out of instinct, so that she would not be seen silhouetted on the line of the ridge. It was a hunting thing, ingrained in her by careful years of living among the forests, the fields and the wild animals. The man with her, holding her around the waist was paying no attention to such details or the beautiful scenery. His mind was elsewhere.

Spring was coming, the trees were budding and the last scoops of snow clung stubbornly in the hollows of the woodland and the higher ground, in the dips and crevices where the sun had not yet peeped in this year. In the shadow of rocks and at the bottom of the narrow rills where moorland streams burst glittering from the spring line atop the harder rock and cascaded like happy children down the slopes. But soon she would, the sun she would, as she sailed higher in the sky each day, her warmth would soon melt away more and more of the winter's cold heart. Soon it would be gone. Winter would be over for one more year and _Lucita_ would breathe her warm breath over the land. Flowers would bloom, bushes would burst into bud, calves and lambs would be born. Spring would come. And with it new life.

It was happening now, even as the last snows stayed on it was happening. A bank of snowdrops and daffodil was higher up the slope, the first spring flowers the girl had seen this year. The young man spoke in the girl's ear and she turned the horse aside and stopped. He dismounted and reaching up to his riding companion helped her down. Even though he could ride tolerably well now he had chosen this day to share her mount. And even though she was a far better rider than he, she let him assist her down, for the simple pleasure of feeling his hands on her.

They walked up the slope a few yards and stood looking at the bank of pretty flowers, white as the snow and yellow as the sun. Winter and spring. For a long time they didn't speak. She didn't want to speak, she didn't want to use words and sentences and thoughts. They broke the days up into smaller pieces and seemed to make the time go past more quickly. She wanted each day to last as long as it could, make each last forever if she could. But she knew she couldn't, she knew that time was passing and so she kept silent, holding onto the precious silence, drawing the moment out, drawing the day out. Making their time together last as long as possible.

The man turned and put his face to the south, across the valley he looked at the view. Each day the sun climbed higher in the sky and each day he feared would be the last. He had been hearing rumours of discontent and mutterings. Not in their village, in Bruaendell every single person was both their friend and his supporter. One man had spoken to him in the lane yesterday.

"If it comes to it, we will defend you, all of us. We would fight."

But Pazu had known that would be the worst thing. Fighting was the last thing he wanted. He'd had a bellyful of fighting and killing and needed no more. Worst of all the thought of war here, men dying here revolted him, appalled him. In this perfect place men should be happy, they had everything to be happy for. No, if it came to that he would simply leave.

Sheeta knew this. And it was this that frightened her most. Spring was coming, life was coming, all around them _Lucita _opened her arms and poured her love onto the land. Except here, for him and for her. There was little life in their pretty farmhouse. He was dying, by slow degrees each day he became more unhappy and morose. And she? She was already dead. The husk of a woman, waking, eating, bathing, sleeping, just being. She had cried and cried and now there were no tears left to come, nothing left. Except this huge bitter angry ache, the ache that filled her whole life and made every day a funeral.

He breathed in deeply.

"It's a beautiful view, a lovely view. One of my favourites."

She wasn't looking at it, but at the grass. She looked up and slowly turned her head to him. Her face was pale and drawn, dark marks under red eyes. When she spoke, there was no emotion in her voice.

"My favourite view… is you."  
"It is better that I go."  
"How can it be?"  
"If I go, two lives end. If I stay, hundreds might. It's not a choice I can even hesitate to make."  
"That doesn't mean I have to agree with it."  
"The dream, Sheeta, my dream that night. He's using me, _Maerth-dhu_ has a hold of me somehow and is using me to do his work, to take lives. I won't let him do that. I'm going to fight him."  
"I've heard this all before Pazu. I know. I don't need to be reminded of your reasons. Just… before you go. Let's not talk about it. It hurts to even think about it."  
"Come with me."  
"I want to, but my life is here. It's all here, this is where I should be."  
"Just pack a horse and come. It's easy. We can go far away. I'll build us a farmhouse and we can live together where no-one knows us. Have cows, plant crops…"  
"Stop it! Just stop it! _Please!_ I can't bear it. You know I can't leave, so many things tie me here. My royal status binds me."

There had been a time, months ago, when he had sat in the back of a farm wagon and been surprised that spring followed the harvest. A pleasant buzz, a warm sensation in which she played her part. Her smile, her need to end a silly argument between them, had led to a day in which spring had come before autumn. He recalled that day and smiled. A day so long ago when he had been a boy, someone else, someone innocent. Before he had known her, a time before he'd known anything at all. Now winter was ending and spring was finally here.

But not for them. For them winter would simply go on, for ever. No new life with the spring, no budding flowering joy. For them no summer of warmth and happiness, of sunny carefree days. And for them no harvest. Pazu had sown. Sheeta would reap. She had once given him a springtime where there should have been autumn. He had repaid her kindness, instead of with spring, by giving her an endless winter.

Pazu hated the world and everything in it, even himself. There was only one thing he did not hate, and that was the one thing he could not have. They didn't speak again. She didn't want words and sentences to tear the day to shreds, to tear her heart to shreds.

The Gathering's decision of nine weeks ago had become notorious; the most infamous announcement they had ever made; never before in centuries had this happened. The Decision Bell had rung out nine times in agreement to the proposal posted on the debating chamber doors. There had then been silence for ten minutes before it rang again, this time it tolled thirteen times. The Gathering had agreed that Pazu was a prince and had disagreed that he was royalty. The news swept the land like a blizzard. Despite being barred from royal status there were still those who feared him, who feared Sheeta might recognize him. People, their vision clouded by their own greed and desires, plotted to remove her from his influence. To protect their own interests they would harm those of their own queen.

They rode on across the countryside, through farms and woodland, splashing through streams and over the high ground. They rode in silence, this time of being together and holding each other was all they had. As the day drew down and the sun sank in the west Sheeta turned Immy homewards. She hated this, the coming home, it might end with bad news, of men coming, of disturbances, of perhaps officials at her door demanding she come with them.

They rode down the lane in the early evening dark and rounded the last bend in the river. There were lights on in her farm (Pazu had stopped thinking of it as their farm now, it had become just her farm again) and they could see the yard gate open and people within. Sheeta pulled on the reins and Immy stopped. Was this it? Was this the last day? The day she had dreaded for weeks? Were these people here to argue with them, and perhaps tear them apart?

With an ache of foreboding filling her, Sheeta kicked her heels against the horse's flanks and she went on.

"_Usu, _Immy,_ usu_. Good girl."

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_17 – __18 April 2007_

_For author notes about Chapter Fifty Three, please see my forum (click on my pen name) _


	55. Chapter 54 : Stones

**Chapter Fifty Four – Stones**

Shuna met them at the gate. Sheeta was relieved to see him, if he was here, it couldn't be all bad.

"What is it?"  
"Several Councillors to speak with you."

Her heart bounded, _please no_

"Is it bad news?"  
"I do not know, but they seem excited about something. I am not privy to their intentions."

Pazu dismounted.

"Shuna, stay. If anything bad happens I want you to keep close to Sheeta, if for any reason I can't protect her, you shall."  
"I understand _Paetsu_."  
"Shuna, please, it's Pazu."  
"Let me stable the horse, you two go in. I will be there at once."

Sheeta's parlour seemed to be full of elderly women, and two men. For the Gathering a typical divide of the sexes. The councillors were not wearing formal dress but warm traveling clothes. Had they just arrived here tonight? It was most unlike members of the Gathering to arrive at a destination late in the day and proceed directly to business. More usually a good meal and a bed were needed before the talking could commence the following day.

Therefore, something was wrong.

Sheeta and Pazu looked around. He recognized Councillor Kamaesa and went to speak with her but she indicated a direction with her eyes. He glanced over. Sheeta had already noticed the thin tall red-haired woman. Pazu remembered her from his questioning over two months ago.(1) She bowed to Sheeta and pressed the palms of her hands together in greeting. She spoke.

"My Lady, Mister Pazu, please may I ask your forgiveness for such a rude intrusion unannounced so late in the day? May I introduce myself? Councillor Auyhonia of Moraecq.(2) I trust you will remember me from Penaerth?"

Sheeta gave a small bow in return. The red-haired lady's presence comforted her. She was one who had been on her side.

"Indeed. I recall that you were the only courteous lady present."

Auyhonia smiled

"Thank you, Lady."  
"Please, I must offer you hospitality. Remove your traveling cloaks, some drink? Food?"  
"My Lady, time is short, please do not be offended if we refuse your kind hospitality, we mean no offence, if circumstances were different we would most gladly partake."  
"I will make tea."

Shuna had spoken. Waiting for neither agreement nor refusal, he went through to the kitchen. Sheeta noticed that he left the kitchen door open. Good, if there was to be trouble, he would hear.

"Please, at the very least, be seated."

The five elderly women and two men looked around. What on? Sheeta didn't have enough chairs. Pazu went upstairs and brought down the chairs from the bedrooms and a blanket box. Eventually there were at least enough places for the visitors to sit. Councillor Auyhonia remained standing.

"Lady, we do not intend to stay long."  
"How can we help you tonight?"

Sheeta could not keep the tone of concern out of her voice.

"I will try to be brief, although there is much to say. My Lady, you and Mister Pazu must make a decision soon. We bring information that may assist you in making it. However we do not have much time. We know that the town of Heyng under Councillor Ptuomasa is already gathering an army. They have two or three thousand under arms ready to march. They are no more than four or five days away. Other towns and villages in Tohro province are restless also."  
"Ptuomasa was the rude bald Councillor wasn't he?"  
"Yes. The southern provinces are the most agitated."  
"What about?" asked Pazu.

He was stood by the window, arms folded, looking out into the yard.

"Mister Pazu, they fear the unknown. They fear change. They fear the disruption of a comfortable cosy existence. They fear their world being turned upside down. Your return represents potential for all those things. I doubt they will use force but their irrational fear can be assuaged by having force ready to hand. The key is to not resist force with force. Although it may be your initial reaction to do so, down that path lies certain disaster.

"My Lady, we come here tonight because of your stone. Everything links to the stone. Yours is the last one. The very last Royal Daughter Stone in the world. You are the last Queen; the fact that you are both the last is not a co-incidence. The fact that had Mister Pazu been recognized as royalty he would have been a prince without a stone was one other factor in the Gathering's deliberations, although we could not say so at the time.

"Please listen carefully. It is vital that you understand all the subtleties of what I am about to tell you.

"In times past many royal family members had a stone. Not one stone for each family as you may have been taught, but several in each family, passed down, generation after generation. Each Councillor, each member of the Gathering also had one. Each Councillor was the senior official for one island. There were once a great number of islands. Each Royal or Gathering Daughter Stone was cut from an Engine Crystal, the two forming a pair, parent and child, or as we think of them, mother and daughter.

"When each island came to earth words of sleep were spoken and the Engine Crystal fell asleep, preventing that island from ever flying again. When the mother slept the Royal or Gathering Stone, the Daughter Stone then lost all, or almost all its power. It was either simply kept as a powerless trinket, discarded or if some power remained it was kept inside the head of a staff. Over time the staff stones would also die and when they did, that Councillor position was lost, given up. There were originally tens of thousands of Gathering Stones, now less than three hundred remain.

"In the same way that your stone is the last, and you, my Lady are the last, there is also one last staff without a stone – Councillor Kamaesa's. It is empty awaiting your Daughter Stone. It is no co-incidence that Councillor Kamaesa is the Gathering's representative in your village, my Lady. And also, in the same way that there remains but a single stone, a single queen and a single staff there is still alone in the world a single Engine. Just one."  
"I know. I've seen it." from the window, looking into the yard, Pazu turned and faced the room.  
"You have _seen _the last Engine?" Councillor Auyhonia seemed shocked.  
"Yes. What of it Councillor?"  
"The fact that you are _alive_, is what, young man. This would be under the mountain, yes? Across the lake?"  
"Yes. And I don't believe that it's a coincidence that it too is here. The crystal that's generating the heat that creates the hot springs, warms the lake and, if I'm not mistaken, keeps this community alive with its own local warm climate. It allows crops to grow earlier and later in the year doesn't it? Far more fish live in the lake I assume. And keeps the snow levels down?"  
"For a newcomer you learn fast. You are to be commended on your keen perception. Yes, without that Engine crystal, this valley would not be so bountiful. Life would continue here, but it would be harder. But descending into an Engine cavern is certain death. If you went there and survived you must have had the Daughter Stone with you?"  
"Yes. It was sheer luck though that I did. Sheeta offered it to me."  
"When was this?"  
"Some weeks ago. I had heard at the _Suethelhin_ that there were caves under the mountain and went to investigate."  
"Just casually? Alone?"  
"Yes."

Auyhonia was stunned.

"That was an extremely stupid thing to do. You might have died."  
"It wasn't hard to find. It's only a mile or two into the mountain. Don't inquisitive children go in there from time to time?"  
"No, they do not. And it is _not _an easy place to find. If you found it then you must have skill for navigating underground. Tell me," she turned to Sheeta, "my Lady, what led you to give Mister Pazu your stone?"  
"I don't know. I was just uneasy. It seemed the right thing to do. I did feel afraid for him."  
"Were you bleeding?"  
"I was, well, just starting. I began that evening. How did you guess?"  
"I expect your condition gave you a deeper affinity to your stone. I would imagine it wanted to go and imposed it's will on you and thus you gave it to Pazu. That is how it works. The royal female is very much attuned to her stone during the time she bleeds."

Shuna unobtrusively returned and moved quietly about the room serving tea.

"But what about Laputa? Another Engine is still running under Laputa," Pazu was puzzled.  
"And it has a living Daughter Stone also. But, if I may, I will speak of that later. Right now, and fascinating as this discussion is, we are being distracted. Let me press on. If my Lady goes to the cavern and puts the Engine Crystal to sleep, it will die. It is the last island crystal. Then the last Royal Daughter Stone will lose much of its power and will be placed in Kamaesa's staff. It can still be used for some healing, some illumination, some finding and other minor spells but it will be weaker and it too, one day will eventually die."  
"They are alive then, aren't they?" Pazu asked.  
"Indeed, they are, in a way. The Daughter Stone being separated from the Mother Crystal is a little like giving birth. The Daughter Stone loves its mother like a human daughter does. It would have become much stronger when it got closer to its mother. You mentioned this, my Lady, in your testimony, how it took both of you to stop it the night you drew the fire spell from it here."

Sheeta nodded.

"Mister Pazu, what happened in the cavern?"

Pazu smiled, now he understood.

"They talked. They had a conversation. I think the big crystal was angry."

An expression of sadness came over Auyhonia. One of the other lady Councillors gasped and the remainder acted as though this were significant.

"In the cavern they were talking because they had not met for decades, if not hundreds of years. The Engine wasn't angry, she was unhappy. She had met her Daughter for a short while only. When we flew in the skies Engines and Daughters were never far apart and met frequently. The Engine under the mountain has been separated from her Daughter for a long time.

"They talked because they were happy to see each other. And there is more. The connection between royalty and the levitation stones is deep and subtle, very fundamental. You will recall how interested the Gathering was in determining the relationship between Her Highness and Mister Pazu. I regret that we were somewhat clumsy in our questioning. It was of course a deeply personal subject and we were simply not at liberty to explain our actions but we did at least attempt to uncover some facts. We were unsuccessful however in deciding."  
"Deciding what?"  
"Whether you were with child or not."

Sheeta stared at her.

"What on earth has that got to do with my stone?"  
"Your relationship was important to the Gathering because if my Lady were to be with child the bond between a royal mother and child would mirror the bond between Engine and Daughter Stone. Putting the Mother Stone to sleep would put the royal mother of the child to sleep – this was why the Gathering were so interested in trying to discover the relationship between you – but we couldn't tell you why for obvious reasons. Please, my Lady, forgive us."

Sheeta and Pazu stared at each other; the surprise was almost too much to bear. Sheeta actually burst out in nervous laughter.

"Oh. I see. Uh, well, you have no need to be concerned. I am not carrying Pazu's child, nor anyone else's."

Councillor Auyhonia bowed to her and Pazu and Sheeta both felt a wave of relief pass around the room.

"This was why the royal families of the Heart, the Head and the Hand died out – they chose death and the death of their Engine Crystals. The Hand died out too except for the branch of the family that descended from _Phom_, who were disowned. My Lady lived because her Engine Crystal is still alive in the mountain."  
"I thought Laputa was my crystal?"  
"No, as fate would have it, and I am sure this surprises you, _Paztsu Romuska's_ life was tied to that Engine, and he died, so now without a life linked to it the Engine Crystal of Laputa is free, but alone in the sky. The Daughter Stone of Laputa resides in the staff of Chamberlain Lammnia, the only staff that contains a living Daughter."

Pazu and Sheeta both frowned. This was becoming complex and difficult to take in.

"I don't understand. Why would I possibly wish put my Engine to sleep? And why put my Daughter Stone into Councillor Kamaesa's staff?"  
"My Lady, because they are all linked. Engine, Daughter, staff… and Queen."

The thin red-haired lady paused. She seemed for the first time to actually be an old woman, and to be a little tired. She looked at Sheeta, she looked long and hard and carefully at the girl, watching to see if the understanding would come.

"I… I would die?"  
"No, my Lady, not _you_. Your royal status. Without your stone you would no longer be queen. There is a corollary to sending the Engine Crystal to sleep. And it is why we have come tonight. _This_ is the purpose of our visit.

"A member of the royal line cannot remain royal without their stone. Your stone will be passed to Councillor Kamaesa when its mother goes to sleep. At that point you will no longer be _Qu-elle Lucita Toelle Ur Laputa_, you just become _Sheeta o-Bruaendell_. And of course, at that point, you become a commoner. And," she smiled, the first time she had done so, "as a commoner you are free to marry whosoever you wish. In addition to which, without you as royalty, it becomes impossible for Mister Pazu to be recognized as royalty since you are the last queen. Without _that_, the reason most people in Gondoa have to interfere in your future becomes moot. Pazu can no longer be a royal leader since you can no longer be placed under duress to recognize him as such. Of course it would need a statement from him declaring he had no intention of continuing _Pastzu Phom's_ aims and intentions, and since I do not know you well Mister Pazu, nor know your true purpose here, this might be the hardest thing to do."

--I--  
---o-o-oOo-o-o---  
I I

Silence fell in the room. Pazu was still at the window, although now he let his folded arms drop. Sheeta had been at the fireplace near where Councillor Auyhonia stood. She lifted one hand to the mantel and leaned on it. She needed to. Else she would simply collapse in a heap. Despite his best efforts, not one person had tasted Shuna's delicious _timsu_ infused tea. Now someone did. Sheeta reached for her cup and with a shaking hand she drained it, in a most un-queenly way, in one go.

In those few perfect moments of silence something happened inside her. In the coldest, deadest, most unhappy corner of her aching heart, a heart that had been slowly and agonizingly breaking for weeks, Sheeta saw something, some tiny little thing. It was like the tiny spark of life that was created each month in her belly, an insignificant fragile thing. A mere transitory moment. Like the egg her body created, if it did not meet a man's seed within the designated time it would die. This tiny thing in her heart now, needed a seed, or it would fade and be gone. Like the egg of her womb it had to be helped in order to become life. Alone it was just a spark and would go out. It needed… She needed…

"Pazu?"  
"Sheeta."  
"Councillor Auyhonia, Pazu and I need some privacy. To talk."  
"Of course my Lady. We came here tonight merely to inform. You do not need to make a decision now, there is a little time yet, two days, perhaps three…"  
"No, I wish to talk now. If you would be so kind as to excuse us."

The Councillor was embarrassed.

"Oh, I am so sorry, yes, my Lady, we will step outside and leave you alone together."  
"No, no, no. Don't do that! Please stay. Pazu?"

Sheeta held out her hand. The tiny thing inside her, that was hope, needed a seed. It needed _him_. He stepped across the room, he still had not removed his riding coat, the thick fur covering, nor she hers, and his riding boots left mud from the yard across the floor. Her hand beckoned him.

"Pazu, please come."

He closed the space that separated them and held out his hand also. Her small white hand touched his and holding it tightly she led him from the room, into the kitchen and out into the back garden. She led him to the garden gate and out into the blue orchard. Ptamos was risen early and there was gentle blue moonlight here separating the dark puddles of shadow of the trees. The first small green shoots were appearing on the apple and pear trees and they would soon be in full blossom. Down here in this valley by the lake they blossomed earlier than over the hill to the south in the next valley. No one had ever been able to work out why. They looked at the night sky, the myriad stars. She hardly dared speak.

"Pazu, what do I do?"  
"Sheeta, this is your decision."  
"No, it's ours. It affects us both."  
"It affects you much more, it affects this village, all these people, your friends, the change in heat here will affect their lives. This whole country, the end of royalty."  
"Pazu, I didn't mean that, and you know it. This is about us. We can be married. Don't you want that?"  
"My beautiful lady, you know what I want. There is nothing more in the world that I want so much, but it's such a big price."  
"No it isn't! It's a tiny price. We stop the war in one go! We don't risk all those lives! You cheat _Maerth-dhu_! You can stand there on top of that grain tower and stick your tongue out at him, and laugh at him. You can lift your riding skirt and stick your bare bottom out at him if you like. Give him a whiff of his own stink!"  
"Sheeta!"  
"Laugh, you… _yau_ _taeg_! Come on, laugh! It's funny!"

He smiled. He grinned at her. It was funny, she was funny. It had been so long since she had smiled. Since she had laughed and he had laughed with her. Her eyes shone, she saw a seed of promise for her tiny egg of hope.

_seed, come to me, give this hope birth and make it become life _

"But you won't be queen. You won't have the stone."  
"I'll have you, Pazu, my great big idiot! I am happy to be nothing as long as I have you. If you go, without you, I am nothing anyway. I may as well be nothing and have you."

There is no logic in a broken heart, yet in Sheeta there was a grain of logic still left. What she said did make sense. Especially to a person so much in love with her.

"My dream is to fly, build flying machines."  
"My dream Pazu is to be your harbour. Have your children. I want those things so much. Please, let me do that for you. I'll happily die if I can do that."  
"Well… I think we've decided already haven't we?"  
"Hm. I think so. Would you…? Please would you hold me?"

He opened her yaoko pelt coat and slipped his arms inside it and around her. Running her hands inside and around his shirt and feeling his firm warmth, she held him too and for a few minutes they merely rested against one another. She spoke.

"Don't wake me."  
"What?"  
"If this is a dream, don't wake me up. I want it to go on and on."  
"I hope it is a dream, our dream. I hope it has come true. I hope it never ends."  
"Pazu, I love you very much."  
"Sheeta, marry me."

Her hope that was a tiny fragile egg and the seed of his promise joined together. They became one. Cautious yet, and unsure, but joined.

She was quiet, she did not want to speak, to tear this moment up into pieces with words and thoughts, to make shreds of now. She wanted it to go on, make it last as long as she could. So for her reply she did not speak but merely held him tighter.

**  
**_- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - _

_(1) Please remember that in my universe this society has eight months each of 45 days making a 360 day year. Weeks are still seven days of 24 hours. So a month is a little over six weeks long.  
(2) Her name is pronounced "Eye-honnia" but with a more open first syllable, more of an "o" sound, "Oye-honnia". The name of her town is pronounced "More-hek"._

_For author notes about Chapter Fifty Four, please see my forum (click on my pen name)_


	56. Chapter 55 : Absolution

**Chapter Fifty Five – Absolution  
**

They returned hand in hand to the small parlour seemingly crowded yet containing only eight people. It was silent and every face turned to them. Still Shuna's tea had not been drunk, Pazu gained the strong impression that no-one had spoken or moved in the ten minutes they had been outside.

"We have decided."  
"My Lady, this is a very important decision, if you decide to give up your stone you cannot turn back, the decision is not reversible."  
"I understand. It will avert war, Gondoa can remain at peace, it will allow us to be together. We have already decided that this is what we both want."  
"And you understand what this will mean for your status?"  
"It will be exactly what I want it to be. That of a wife."

Councillor Auyhonia smiled at her again. What it had once been like to be young. She had memories of that too, a long time ago. She at least understood the young woman's decision for those reasons. Youth and love were great motivators, among the strongest and best.

"Very well. We shall proceed in the morning."  
"Can we not do it now?"  
"Now? Tonight?"  
"We are ready, both of us."  
"Well, let me see. Councillors? What say you?"  
"We are seven," one of the men said, "and represent at least three parishes, the minimum required for autonomy in civil decisions."(1)  
"Have we the necessary protocols?"  
"In my head, of course," muttered Kamaesa, "like all of them."  
"Any who dissent?" asked Auyhonia

Sheeta looked around, the sweep of her gaze was met by silence.

"Let us proceed. My Lady, the ceremony of absolution can be done here, whether it be performed on public or private ground is not important. Then of course the Engine must be visited and the necessary words spoken there. After that the ceremony of transfer – Daughter stone to staff… and, hm, royalty to commoner."  
"How long will it take?"  
"The ceremonies themselves will take only thirty minutes but of course you have to go to the cavern, Lady, that journey and back will take all night."  
"I go?"  
"Of course. Who did you think would go?"  
"I. Uhm… Well, I think I thought one or more of you would."

Auyhonia smiled kindly at her.

"Do we look like cave climbers to you, Lady? No, this is as much a personal journey as a physical walk. It has symbols beyond the obvious, Lady. You must go. You must touch the mother. Your hand and your heart must touch her. It is a communion and putting her to sleep will not be easy. When there you may even change your mind, it has happened. Any number may go with you but only persons actually holding the Daughter stone can enter the Engine chamber. The temperature down there is thousands of degrees, none who are not protected by a stone can approach."

_really?_ Thought Pazu_, it didn't seem that hot to me. I must have been shielded from the heat_

"I know the way. I'll go with you," he said.  
"_Yau-taemo_, Pazu. Shuna? Would you please come."  
"I would be honoured, Lady. However, your guests here – someone should stay to be host in your absence."

Ever the practical man, Sheeta consented for him to stay and organize the sleeping and meal arrangements for the councillors. It would most likely be a very long night for them.

"I wish to go. At least to the mountain shore. If I may."  
"Councillor Kamaesa? Yes, of course, as you wish."

Sheeta frowned. _Why?_

"Shall we begin?" Auyhonia spoke, "Do you wish to preside, Bellringer?"

Kamaesa waved a hand dismissively.

"Do I need to prepare at all? Formal clothes?"

Auyhonia looked at Sheeta.

"Prepare only your heart, Lady, for tonight it will be tested. Once this final journey begins, it ends at one destination only. Remember that. You _will_ be afraid, I have stood in an Engine chamber once only and I have no desire to do so again. Be strong, strength is all you need. You also must be certain, _absolutely_ know inside you that this is right. Once done, it is done, there will never again be royalty in Gondoa, that ending is wholly your decision. Over the centuries this act has been performed tens of thousands of times, hundreds of thousands. This will be the last, the last Engine, the last Daughter, the last Queen, after this it will be over. I need to make sure you understand this."

For a few moments Sheeta stood, eyes closed. She considered again the old woman's words. There was no choice, this would bring peace and it would bring him to her. She was also suddenly aware that, this being the last stone, this would bring an end to the attempts by Muska's people to use it for their own purposes. She felt relief at that. She opened her eyes and nodded. She realized she had known this within the first few seconds of her being told it half an hour ago, she had known it when she felt that first tiny spark of hope inside her. She still wore her outdoor clothes: the thick animal pelt coat, a Gondoan shirt and this day, riding britches in the southern style, and a knitted woolen overshirt. Under his coat Pazu wore a Gondoan shirt, leather riding skirt and leg wrappings. Both were still mud spattered from the days ride. Sheeta thought it would be a long day yet although she was not the least bit tired.

Auyhonia prepared the room. The six other councillors sat in a crescent facing the hearth, two of them with parchment and pens to transcribe the words that would be spoken. Auyhonia stood to one side, and Sheeta before the crescent, her back to the hearth, a cushion before her. Pazu and Shuna remained by the kitchen door, merely spares. For a time Auyhonia and Kamaesa whispered together. Then they were ready. The red-haired woman spoke in Oistrakh-Auera.

"Be it known this day forty one of Rhayadhirrin, in the Year of Blessing Five Thousand Eight Hundred and Seven, at this place of Bruaendell, parish of Suethelmae county of Duhum, this Land of Plenty Gondoa, that we are gathered here to commit to eternal sleep Engine Crystal number Two Seven Six Eight One One Laputa and to accept into secondary life Daughter Crystal number Two Seven Six Eight One Two Laputa, witness this our hand…"

The Councillor recited the names of those present, first the Queen, then the Councillors and finally the names of two commoners.

"Be it known we are seven Councillors of the Gathering recognized in law to preside at civil ceremony of Absolution type Nine Six.

"The carrier of the Daughter Crystal will answer the following questions. You are _Qu-elle Lucita Toelle Ur Laputa_, Queen of Gondoa?"  
"I am."  
"You are the legal and rightful carrier of Daughter Crystal number Two Seven Six Eight One Two Laputa?"  
"Yes, I am."

Her coat was unbuttoned, Sheeta reached into the neck of her shirt and pulled out the stone on its old worn leather cord. As always, it was warm. As always a faint blue radiance played inside it. It rested outside her clothing.

_come out, I want you to hear this  
_  
was her thought. In a small space around the stone, her shirt turned blue.

"You are the last of the royal line of Laputa? The last of the four royal houses of the Flying Kingdoms?"  
"I am."  
"Today your intention is to proceed into Engine Chamber Suethelmae and draw out words and put to eternal rest Engine Crystal number Two Seven Six Eight One One Laputa. Is that correct?"  
"It is."  
"You have been made fully aware of the consequences of this act? For your royal line?"  
"Yes."  
"It _will_ end."  
"I understand."  
"You will become of common blood."  
"That is what I want," she turned her head and looked at Pazu. He merely looked serious.  
"Daughter Crystal number Two Seven Six Eight One Two Laputa will no longer bear primary life."  
"I understand."  
"Said Daughter Crystal will be given up into secondary life within the Gathering Staff of Councillor _Kamaesa o-Bruaendell_."  
"Yes."  
"You rescind all title and legal right to bear said Daughter Crystal, or to draw from her any spell?"  
"I do."  
"Councillor Kamaesa, do you recognize your right to possession of said Daughter Crystal?"  
"I do," answered the ancient lady.  
"And do you solemnly promise and undertake to use said Daughter Crystal's secondary life in the service of your community, your parish, your county and your nation?"  
"I do."  
"And for no other purpose?"  
"I do."

Auyhonia took a step forward, as did Kamaesa.

"_Qu-elle Lucita Toelle Ur Laputa_, Queen of Gondoa, please kneel."

Without using her hands, Sheeta descended to a kneeling posture on the cushion, her thighs remained vertical, she knelt up.

"Please lift the stone away from your body by its supporting cord."

She did so, the stone hung blue in the air. Auyhonia and Kamaesa lowered their staffs so the steel round heads were at the height of Sheeta's shoulders, a little above the stone and to either side of it.

"By these words do we absolve you of your act of committing unto sleep said Engine Crystal. May your heart be strong and may she rest in peace. _Uhmtuino Hyehtimanaeh Usur_."

A spell Sheeta didn't know. A flicker of red smoke and light came out of the end of Auyhonia's staff. It coiled sleepily, lazily in the air and then extending into a tongue it languidly moved to Sheeta's stone, as though very weak and timid. It took a few seconds to close the short gap between it and the blue crystal. Just before it reached her stone, something startling happened. A blue tendril, much like the snakes of fire that had issued out the night Surun had been here, shot out of Sheeta's stone so fast, no-one saw it move. In a flash it struck the red tongue and the two colours whirled together in a spinning orb. This ball of mixed coloured light began to revolve faster and faster, burning brighter. Sheeta had to close her eyes it was so dazzling. Behind her closed eyelids she felt bright white light and warmth and then the light faded.

She opened her eyes and a purple smoking globe of light a few inches across hung in the space between her stone and Auyhonia's staff. This purple light began to move. It was a beautiful colour, rich and deep and glittering. Trailing both blue and red tendrils behind it, it rose and circled her head, once, twice, three times it floated around her and then hovered on the other side, between the stone and Kamaesa's staff. As it circled her Sheeta felt a strange tingling sensation, as though she had pins and needles all through her upper body. It was quite unpleasant. Then, with a second startlingly fast movement, it shot towards the staff and burst against it. The shiny steel head glittered for a moment and became dull. The light faded.

"The receptacle for the secondary life of said Daughter Crystal is ready."

To Sheeta, Auyhonia said, "Arise, bow your head."

Her queen complied. Both Councillors laid the heads of their staffs on her shoulders.

"Go forth from this place. May strength and resolve and wisdom beyond your years go with you. May _Utomu_ and _Konuguen_(2) guide you. Go with the spirit. My Lady, go. Do your last duty."

The staffs were raised and the women stepped back. Kamaesa put a hand on her shoulder.

"Come now, let us go. Pazu, please ready a boat."  
"Shuna," said Pazu, "I leave you in charge, help yourself to the larder and the ale store, use whatever you wish. I imagine the Councillors will be hungry. Bedding is in short supply but there are some straw mattresses in the equipment shed. It's all we have."  
"Don't worry Pazu. I can get more from my farm. And as to needing a meal, I am not so sure. I think this will be quite a strange night. And Pazu," the younger man had turned to go, "be careful. And _Utomu_ be with you."

He gave a small bow.

"_Yau-taemo_ Shuna."

Crossing the lake was the strangest journey Sheeta had ever made. It was a cool night, it was still late winter after all, and there was a sharp breeze, and the water was choppy and running before the wind. It slapped against the little boat and made it shiver. The lake was as black as ink, no moons had risen. There was little cloud and some starlight but there came a point, in the middle of the lake when the far shore was not yet visible and she glanced over her shoulder to find the village shore had also receded into the dark. They seemed to be alone on a wide sea, miles from shore, blackness above and black below. Behind them they had come from nothing and ahead, were going into nothing.

She sat in the stern of the boat, Kamaesa in the bow. Sheeta didn't know why the old woman had come, perhaps she would say prayers, perhaps she just wanted to be nearby. Looking up at the stars out here in the perfect dark she could see thousands and thousands of them. She imagined up there, somewhere, Laputa still flying those silent empty skies. Was it here now, above her, at night with the birds and animals sleeping or was it on the other side of the world where it was day and the strange animals that inhabited it played in the pools and the ruined rooms? She imagined the last robot, picking flowers. When flowers came with the spring she would pick them, she would fill every room of the farmhouse with their beautiful colours and scents. She would open the windows and let the fresh air in, she would try and make her house like Laputa, full of life and air and colour. She wanted that future.

It was a slow climb up the other shore to the cliff. Councillor Kamaesa needed to rest frequently but eventually they reached the black maw of the cave.

"What I can do for you, I can do from here," Kamaesa said, "Pazu, would you build me a small fire please?"

He did so, gathering what he thought would be enough wood for the night. There was a lot of lightweight pinewood here and plenty had begun to dry out now. The Councillor sat on the edge of a flat slab of stone that had, in times past, fallen from the cliff face.

"I will stay here and pray. But before you go," she reached out a leathery hand and placed it in turn on each of their foreheads, and said this, "_Utomu,_ be beside this traveler, guide their steps, hold their hand that they may they not stumble. Bring them home safe and wiser. If the journey should be difficult then by these tests teach them. _Maehome._"  
"Councillor, we won't need our coats, keep them with you. If it is a cold night, make use of them."  
"_Yau-taemo_ Pazu, now, be off with you."  
"But Councillor," Sheeta spoke, "what is the spell I need to know? Councillor Auyhonia didn't tell me."

Kamaesa sat down, open hands toward the fire.

"My Lady, there is no such thing."  
"What do you mean? There must be."  
"No. There is no spell common to this task, each Engine is different, each responds to different words. The Councillor said it would not be easy, and this is the other reason why the carrier of the Daughter Stone alone must do this. The words you speak will be the spell, your mind and heart will make the magic. Just be calm, be strong and be pure. Be sincere. Talk to her, she will listen. She will understand. She may have different desires and will talk to you but you know her already, through her daughter. In you there is the magic. And the words also are in you, you merely have to find them and use them, you alone can do this."

Sheeta was disturbed by this and thrown a little off balance. She felt a warm hand on her arm.

"Remember being chased by Dola's gang on the Ravine railway?"  
She turned to him, "Yes," she replied  
"Remember jumping like a mad girl off a flaming tower, _knowing_ I would catch you?"  
"Pazu, I do."  
"And do you remember attacking one of Muska's men. And resisting his demands?"  
"I do. I did that."  
"He shot at you, several times."  
"He did."  
"And still you went on. You never gave up."  
"Yes. I did all that."  
"When we were on the train and were chased and shot at. You ran like the wind, such speed. You had such grace."  
"I did?"  
"Hm. And in that barn, the day it rained. You held out your hand to me and led me around that corner, along a path I'd never trodden. You did that."  
"Hm. That was easy though," she smiled.  
"You did. Don't be afraid. You can do this too. This is just a walk and a talk. And I'm with you. Just you and me, like before. Like always."  
"Yes," she took in a deep breath, "Let's go."

Pazu had some bread, his knife, his lamp and a large skin of water. He had left the bailing twine behind. He remembered the route, once down a cavern or a mine, he had good recollection underground. They set off.

At the cave mouth Kamaesa sat looking into the fire. From under her robe she drew out a leather pouch and from it sprinkled some incense into the flames. The fire sputtered and there was a blue-green light and a sweet aroma. Holding her staff before her and bending until her forehead touched the round steel end she began to pray, praying like she had never prayed before.

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_19 - 21 April 2007 _

(1)_ Each village has one Councillor, each settlement of over 1,000 souls (considered to be a town) has three Councillors. The capital, Penaerth, has seven. The 'three parishes' rule is in place to prevent seven Councillors from getting together from one or two places and settling civil cases by means of clique, a wider gathering of Councillors being necessary makes corruption and the serving of self-interests less likely.  
(2) __Konuguen is a spirit I have not yet mentioned. While Lucita is birth and growth and life and light and Maerth-dhu is age and disease and death and darkness, Konuguen is the king of the spirit world. If Lucita is the mother, he is the father. He is not her equal though, not her husband. He is more an arbitrator, his presence helps keep the eternal struggle between Lucita and Maerth-dhu in balance. Calling for his guidance is a last resort. That Auyhonia does so would probably scare Sheeta more than anything else, it tells her this is going to be difficult._

_Please review. I'd like to hear from the many people reading this who have not yet reviewed the story. __You don't have to review this chapter necessarily, some general feedback would do._

_For author notes about Chapter Fifty Five, please see my forum (click on my pen name)_


	57. Chapter 56 : Mother

**Chapter Fifty Six – Mother  
**

They walked close together, Pazu's lantern lighting their path. In the wider places they held hands but often it was too narrow and steep and at times they crawled on their knees or slid down on their bottoms. After an hour they reached the cavern where the standing and hanging mineral growths grew towards each other from floor and roof. Pazu took Sheeta over to the place where the very long thin formations were almost touching. She stood in silence a moment looking.

"They're like fingers. Like two people reaching out and almost touching."

He thought of his dream, he thought of two fingers being pulled apart and to him he saw a distance between them. But when she looked she saw a distance closing, two different worlds would eventually meet. Then he saw it. It was something that happened very slowly, gradually over many years. This wasn't sudden change that might disturb the cave. It wasn't like someone rolling a big boulder in here and climbing onto it so they could reach up and touch the ceiling. And in doing that they smashed half the mineral formations in here. No, it was like the floor and ceiling agreeing to come gradually together, drip, drip and slow drip. Yes it would take years, but it was happening in a way that didn't disturb the cave, in fact it added to its beauty.

Soil and Sky. Joining slowly together. By slow and subtle means they could find a common place, they could come together. It may take years, lifetimes, but it would happen. From the Sky something came down, it fell on the Soil and built up a new shape, a new way of doing things. It grew and eventually both the Sky and the Soil were changed and became one and this connection was beautiful. He showed this to her and explained it. And in understanding this slow rate of change she took hope.

--I--  
---o-o-oOo-o-o---  
I I

It was definitely warmer here than before. Pazu found himself drinking more this time and by the time they reached the second pool at the base of the slide of loose stones he had to sit down and rest. He was wet through, the sweat was pouring off him. He discarded the riding skirt and even took his leg wrappings off he was so hot. He offered Sheeta the water but she declined.

"No, I'm fine," she said.

Last time it had taken him about three hours to get here, and this time he knew it was longer, probably four. Of course progress was always slower with two people but tonight he just didn't feel as strong. He was getting weary and the extra heat was sapping his strength minute by minute. He looked at Sheeta, she still wore her woolen overshirt and she wasn't even damp, her face not even shiny with perspiration.

"The stone. What is it doing?"

She pulled it from her clothing and they both saw its blue light, stronger than the last time he'd been here. Everything was different tonight. She held it tight.

"Pazu, it's started. It's buzzing a little."  
"Let's press on."

With difficulty he rose and led her down the drift beside the stream until he reached the jump down to the transverse corridor. He knew that here they left the natural cave system in the rock and entered man-made passages, and somehow that had a bearing on how the stone behaved. The stream roared beside him down its own flute to the left.

"There's a jump down here, about four feet. I'll go first."

He turned and lowered himself off with his arms. Sheeta slid off second, wiggling her bottom to the edge of the drop and sliding down. She stood at the bottom, but what she saw scared her. Pazu lay on the ground, gasping, groaning. She bent down to him.

"Pazu, what is it?"  
"Heat… too much… can't breathe. Noise, splitting my head. Sheeta…"  
"Here, touch the stone."

He weakly lifted an arm but couldn't reach her. She knelt beside him, took the stone from her neck, and as they had done on Laputa she pressed her palm to his.

"Urh, oh… no… wow…"  
"Better?"  
"Yes, much. It's cold now. I was in a furnace, burning up. Sheeta, don't let go of the stone, it'll knock you over. And the noise," he shook his head, "like being inside a steel mill with a hundred hammers crashing."  
"What's a steel mill?"  
"A very loud place, where men make big steel forgings. Loud banging, all day… Drives you mad with the sound… uhn, no whatever you do, don't let go of the stone."  
"But we can't see where we're going holding it like this."  
"Wait."

After some thought they arranged their hands with the palms open, fingers interlaced and the stone lying in the hollow formed by their shared hands. Sheeta wrapped the leather string around some of her fingers. Holding hands and with it's blue light making a tunnel of moonlight underground they faced down the slope.

"It's this way," she said  
"You can tell?"  
"Hm, I can tell, she's not far now."

The humming sound was distinct and stronger than before, this time the sound of the water behind the rock was an irrelevance and the stone in their palms buzzed and jittered. Without the restraining cord it would have jumped off, it was moving so much.

They went along the corridor, Sheeta marveling at the paintings.

"I know some of these designs, Thoma has some of them in his inn and there are others on the walls of the communal hall. Oh, wow, look at this. Here, these two big wing shapes that look like waves, this is the Summerbird, a mythical creature that carries the sun's rays in its beak, when it sings the sun comes out. I have a painting of this at the top of my stairs."

Pazu looked, he did recognize it although this version was more stylized.

"And here. The Green Girl, she lives in the forest and is part helper, part mischief. She guides the forester but teases him as well. She's a good spirit but naughty, quite a sexual creature. I have a clay mask of her over the kitchen door, it brings good luck and fertility. Pazu, this is like… like a walk in my childhood."

He looked at the picture, a round impish face looked back at him, her eye brows and hair were leaves, and ivy strands grew from her mouth. Her eyes were slanted like those of a fox and she looked cunning and pretty. Sheeta became happy, childlike, full of wonder on this walk to the end, the end of it all. Her small feet did not feel the floor, her mind did not feel the fear and her heart was at home with the past of her people, the years went away and she became one with whoever had been here and did this, hundreds of centuries fell to nothing and she joined her spirit to unknown craftsmen and women. She did not notice the colours and sounds about her but Pazu was a little concerned. He kept looking at the stone in their hands, much of the time it wasn't touching their skin at all now, but lifted up, forwards in the direction they were walking and pulling on its trapped cord like a small eager dog out for a walk. He could hear its pale coloured note buzzing and sizzling. Below that were deeper booming thrumming tones. He knew what lay ahead.

"Sheeta, we are here, this is it. Just here."  
"I know, she's on the left. I can feel her."

They reached the cavern, the great chamber and stood on the threshold. Without them going in the Engine was already waiting, lit up and bruising the air with its noise. It was much louder than last time, and Pazu wondered what it would be like if they dropped the stone. They would die instantly, he knew, their ears would be shattered and their minds too by the noise but before that they would be blasted into ashes by the heat. Sheeta looked in, and up, and up. Her head tilted back taking in the size of the place and her mouth fell open, her eyes were wide. A small stunned sound came out, a little "oh" of wonder.

"Gosh," Sheeta marveled, "She's a big girl."  
"She is. And not a lady you'd want to cross."

For a few minutes they stood in the entryway and simply looked, their feet feeling the sound pounding in the rock, their skin feeling the sizzling heat, their hearts bubbling with fear and their ears filled with conversation. They lifted their joined hands and her daughter buzzed and flitted from side to side, wanting release. The stones were not just talking now.

The mother would start a deep note and let it climb then introduce a counter sound that beat faster than the base note. The daughter mimicked the engine, buzzing and whistling in her turn. For several minutes it went on and Pazu could detect complex melodies in there, subtle timing that the mother set up and the daughter followed.

"Singing," she said, "oh my, Pazu, they're _singing_. Listen."

He shook his head. _What? He'd almost fallen asleep_

"Sheeta, try not to be drawn in. It's hypnotic. Wake up!"

He reached and pulled her arm. She suddenly turned to him.

"What?"  
"It's drawing us in, the song. Don't listen too long."  
"Alright. And don't let go of my hand."  
"Don't worry, I have no intention of doing that."  
"Shall we go?"

With her head she indicated the left hand wall of the chamber, the flank of the Engine. Pazu didn't really want to be any closer but he knew they had to be. He didn't envy Sheeta, she was going to have to touch that thing. They entered the cavern. The singing ended and an urgent conversation began. The stone buzzed and whistled and hummed then stopped while the cavern boomed and thundered, then in reply the stone would respond. Then the booming didn't come again. Silence, just a powerful, bone jarring background beat, and waves of heat beating at their skin like flames. Sheeta led Pazu up to the smooth blue wall. He looked up. The slope of the crystal was such that it extended above his head and overhung behind him. They were under it and he felt a sense of claustrophobia, as though it might fall on them.

"Kneel. We should kneel."

She sank down in front of the blue groaning wall, Pazu knelt beside her. The sound and the light and the heat and the vibration were everything now, he felt like if this went on much longer he would just come apart, bits would be shaken loose. He clenched his jaw to keep his teeth from rattling.

"How do you know we should kneel?"  
"I just do. I think somehow she's talking with me. I think I'm just going to know a lot of things soon."

The daughter stone in their hand was now still. It merely lay, buzzing gently. From time to time it moved a little, rolled from side to side, but it no longer tried to jump away. For a while they were silent, Pazu saw she had lowered her head, and seemed to be thinking. Then the powerful bass tone that throbbed around them fell away and a startling stillness filled the chamber. Sheeta lifted her head, already there was dampness at her lower eyelids. Pazu could hardly look at her face, she looked so sad. She spoke, she didn't need to think about what to say, she just opened her heart and the words came, tumbling out of her like a fresh mountain spring. They were pure words, and honest, and Sheeta meant every one of them.

"Suethelmae. May I call you that name? _Taemo_… You know who I am, don't you mother? Yes, it's me, Lucita. I have carried your daughter for only a short time, less than two years. Before that my grand-mamma didn't let me carry her, your daughter lived in a secret place in our house and she was asleep for many years. Before that I think my mother must have carried her. But I was young then, and don't remember. I only remember crying one day. What do I remember? Hm, yes, walking in a field and crying, because she and daddy had gone. I didn't know where they had gone, I knew only that they weren't coming back.

"I expect you wondered if your daughter would ever come back. I'm sorry you and she were parted for so long, but no-one told me you were even here. I'm sorry. Please let me apologize on behalf of so many members of my family who must have known you were here but who never brought your daughter to see you. Over all those years, I suppose it must be seven hundred at least. Probably more. Such a long time. I can't imagine how long… I'm so sorry…

"Do you remember the days when she was with you? Was she close by and did you speak? I'm sure you did, yes. I would. If my mother was close by and in reach I'd go to her often, talk often. I don't know if you understand what a hug is but well, maybe you do. But I hope she hugged you, and you hugged her. We all need that. But please don't be sad, although your daughter was sleeping for many years, in the last few months she has been wonderful to me. She has been a source of great comfort. She has been a darling. She saved my life, oh, I don't know how many times. Four? Five perhaps? She has done great work and led me on a wonderful journey. This boy with me, I think you might know him? Yes. I thought so. You accept him don't you? Oh, thank you. Well, your daughter was the one who carried me to him, and from that day to now he has carried me. She has been a good girl to me and she deserves your love. This boy and I are in love you know. Oh? Well, I should have guessed that you would. She told you did she? When? Ah, I see. He is, yes, a good boy and strong. I want to marry him, and be with him forever. And well…

"Well really that is why we are here. Why I'm here, with your daughter. You see, there is trouble coming for Gondoa, a lot of trouble. I'm afraid that people might die, a great many people. You see, well, the one I love isn't loved by everyone. Some people don't want him here because he might be made a prince and rule the country and bring changes they don't want. I'm sorry to burden you with all this, it's not like I think you will be interested. But if I stay as queen, then some of these people might think I will recognize Pazu here, as prince, so it will be best for the whole country if I'm not a queen anymore, and there is only one way that can happen. Which I'm sure you know all about."

The chamber was filled with a low rumbling, a dull, deep throbbing. Pazu cocked his ear and tried to identify something in the quality of the sound. He could feel almost… what? Fear? Was that what it was? Was the crystal afraid? He looked at Sheeta, he was shocked by her face. She seemed so sad and while she had been talking silent tears had made shining tracks down her face.

"Yes, this is why I am here. I feel horrible now because it's a very selfish reason. You see its not just about stopping men fighting… well, if I am to be honest with you it's not about that at all. The thing is… it's about love. I love Pazu very much, but I am a queen and he is a common man and we can't be married. And I want to marry him. It's really… well... my whole life wants that," she sniffed hard, "What I want is him, and I can't have him. And. I'm sorry, please excuse me I can't talk at the moment."

She lifted her free hand and wiped it across her face and sniffed again. She hung her head and Pazu saw it shaking with silent sobs. Somehow, he didn't know how, she carried on.

"Please forgive me. You see, I know now who you are and what you have done for us. All these years you have been here, your power and warmth running and making the lake warm and the growing seasons longer and the snows less deep. I know, yes, that you encouraged a rural community here, helped it to grow and be fruitful. And I am so grateful, because I am a part of that and so you've been helping me, all my life you've been here for me and I never knew. You have helped thousands of people over hundreds of years without ever a word of thanks. And now… well, instead of thanks I come here and ask something of you that is so unfair, and so ungrateful. But yet, if you do this you will be helping not just all of Gondoa but well, me too. In a very special way, a very strong and personal thing it is.

"You must hate me, coming here and being so selfish. And so, well, I don't know how this works at all, I'm just sat here saying things that feel right and true, and I hope you understand. I don't think I can make you do anything you don't want to, I think all I can do is ask. I don't even know if this is what your daughter wants. All I know for certain is, it's what I want. Very much. Oh, I'm sorry, I'm crying too much…"  
"Sheeta?"

Pazu brought a clean rag from his shirt pocket and leaning forward wiped her tears and her wet little nose. He put the cloth away and came close again. He put a hand to her face and turned her to him. He gently kissed her.

"Keep going, just keep going. You're amazing, and I love you so much."

Somehow, while the tears continued to run, she continued to speak.

"Mamma? You have been a good mother, and us, the people in these villages, like your children, have been bad. We took from you and took and took and we turned our backs on you. And even then you kept on helping us, we who didn't deserve it. And here I am, as unfaithful as any child can be and as undeserving. However, now I know you and what you've done, there is one thing I can say that is true. Mamma, I love you.

"And now, I have to ask you to please rest. I have no idea what happens but I'm asking you to sleep. Please sleep. Its been a long time, a long hard day and well, perhaps you are tired, so if you are, then lie down and just close your eyes and it'll be over."

Sheeta stopped speaking and hung her head. Pazu knelt, helpless as he watched her tears patter onto the stone floor. He saw that as each one touched the rock it instantly vapourized to steam. The rock they were kneeling on must be scorching hot. In their hands the daughter stone moved and buzzed again, fretfully and erratically it jumped about.

Sheeta looked up. Pazu was astonished to see now in her face, not sadness, but love.

"Oh, yes. Yes, of course. And Pazu too?"

She looked at him.

"She wants a hug, she wants to feel us. Can you do that? Put your hand on her, and the stone too."

The two of them raised their free hands and as Pazu's fingers touched the bright blue rock he felt not hot stone as he expected to, but warmth and softness. It was like touching Sheeta, like putting his hand on her stomach and resting it there, so soft. Together they raised their joined hands and the daughter touched the mother and pressed against her huge warm belly. Then, not even thinking it strange Pazu leaned forward and closing his eyes pressed his lips to her.

Amazed, he found that she smelled of his own mother, a smell he'd not known for eight years. And then, then he was…

He was home in the cabin. He came in from working and put down his cloth bundle and his mom, turning from the stove where marvelous smells were being made, smiled at him.

"Hello Pazu lad. My, look at you now. I never would have thought. Come here, stand in front of me."

He went over to her and she stood up from the stove. She was smaller than him and that puzzled him, but then of course he was a man now and she was the age she'd been the day she'd died.

"Look at you, you've grown big and strong. And look what you've done with your life. You have a beautiful girl to take care of now, so why don't you go and do that, hm? Don't worry about me, don't worry yourself at all. When you're done and you want to come home, I'll be here. Mom is always waiting you know? And you can come in and sit down and tell me all about it. So off you go, go and do what you have to do. Just make sure you take good care of her, eh? I think she's worth taking care of. Go on now."  
"Mom?"  
"Yes, Pazu, what is it?"  
"I love you, mom."  
"Oh, you big softy! Where did that come from? Been a while since you said that."  
"I mean it."  
"I know you do. Come here."

He went to his mom, eight years dead, and put his arms around her and held her. He tilted his head down and lifted her face up to his and kissed her.

"Take care of dad, you know how he likes his food, make sure he has plenty."  
"Don't worry about your dad, Pazu, he's right here with me. We are together every day, we're fine. You go now."

He couldn't let go. He pressed his face to her and touched her one last time, running his fingers across his mothers face.

"I love you."  
"I love you too my boy, now go, I'll be fine here, lots of people here, all the flying people are with us, your dad told me you know, about you and that lovely girl you'd one day meet and all the people who lived in the sky. Just you make sure you come to us when you're done and bring that pretty girl of yours with you."  
"I will. I promise."  
"Well bye then."  
"Bye mom…"

He held his hand hard against the hot unyielding rock and pressed his lips to it, and the tears came, the aching loss, the family he'd missed all these years. His tears turned to sobs and then he couldn't hold it in any more, it hurt too much and he collapsed against the hard warm blue stone and let go, let it all come out.

--I--  
---o-o-oOo-o-o---  
I I

It was silent in the cave and completely black. There was no light, nothing from the wall he was leaning against and nothing from the stone that lay quietly in their interlaced fingers. The silence and the dark crushed him, it was so deep, so complete. His ears were ringing. He turned his head. He could see nothing at all, but he could sense her, close by. Sheeta was beside him.

"Sheeta? Are you…?"

No sound.

"Sheeta?"

He reached for her and touched her. She seemed to be kneeling, her forehead down on the ground. He lifted her to him and held her tight. Her arms came around him and held him.

"Pazu… I loved her… She was my mamma."

Sobs again came and wracked her body. He understood what she had said. His mom and hers, the Engine had been both. He held her hard against him until, after a long time, her sobs finished and she was quiet and still.

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_20 - 22 April 2007 _

_For author notes about Chapter Fifty Six, please see my forum (click on my pen name)_


	58. Chapter 57 : Confession

- mum, this is for you. thanks, you were really cool -

**Chapter Fifty Seven – Confession  
**

In the blackness there was just her warmth against him, and her smell and the hard ground beneath them, nothing else. She spoke.

"She was my mamma. She became her. I was… I was just here, underground and talking to a rock. Uh, it sounds silly. And in my head I heard her answers. Not words, more like. I don't know, it's hard to describe. Like when you dream? People don't speak but you feel their words, like in emotions. I could hear her feelings. Her pride, her joy, her sadness, her longing. Her… love. I just couldn't bear it, everything was so strong. All her emotions were so powerful and strong, they tore me to pieces. I can't believe how this is. She was alive, she was a person. And yet a rock."

Sheeta paused, lost for words. She held on tight to Pazu. She could go on spewing this out for ages but even then she wouldn't begin to describe what she had just experienced. She had just lived for a day. A whole day. With her mother.

"Did I cry?"  
"Yes. A lot. But you kept talking to her."  
"Talking? I was talking?"  
"Yes, for ages, ten minutes, twenty minutes. I don't know."  
"Really? I don't remember. I just remember being close to her and we were. That's right, we were sat in my house, in the parlour. In chairs by the fire. And she was talking to me and I was talking, but it must have been a sort of dream. I looked up. Pazu, I cannot explain this but my own mamma was sitting there. I hardly remember her face, it's been so long since I saw her, so many years. Her face has become hazy to me, just a pale shape and a feeling. But now, she was here. We were sat by the fire talking, and she loved me so much. She was so sorry to have left me, she apologized for leaving me so young. I told her grand-mamma had been there and had taken good care of me."  
"You did?"  
"Hm."  
"You never said any of that."  
"I don't know really what happened, but we talked for a long time. It was summer and the day was hot and we went outside and walked in the field by the lake. We walked for ages, hours, by the river. We talked. And Pazu… oh, my I can't say this. We talked about everything, my childhood, what I used to be like, the games I played, how I used to be naughty. And we held hands and threw stones in the water. We picked flowers. I made her a crown of flowers and she wore it. Then we went back to the house and she cooked a meal. I sat by the fire on the little raised wall there? You know? By the kitchen hearth and my legs swung – they were too short to reach the ground. I was a child again, I was four years old. She cooked us pancakes and we had cream and strawberries on them. Did I ever tell you I like strawberries?"  
"Yes. You did."  
"We ate and then we… she read me a story. A story of a prince who was sent away because his father hated him. He came back years later to claim his kingdom but it had changed and the people didn't want him. And a princess he had known as a child and who had loved him for years was waiting. They met again and fell in love and although no-one else liked him or wanted him to be prince, the princess did. She welcomed him into her home and they lived together happily ever after. He was no-one to the people, but to her she was his lost prince.

"As she read to me I thought it was a sad story but lovely too. I was only four and didn't know you, but it seemed a lovely story to me. I sat there beside her and wanted my lost prince to come home. And she said… mamma said…"  
"Sheeta… don't. If it hurts to say it, just keep it in yourself."  
"Pazu, no. I want to tell. She said. _If your prince comes back, you won't love me, won't need me_. And I said _no, mamma I will always love you_. But she just smiled and looked at me. Then she tucked me into bed and kissed me goodnight and told me she loved me. She said no matter what, how long or whatever I did or wherever I went she would always love me. And if I ever needed her to do anything. Anything at all, whatever I asked of her, she would do it. Out of love."  
"Sheeta please…"

Her face was pressed into his chest.

"No, Pazu, this is part of it, part of the healing, telling you is part of it all. This isn't about just the Engine or me no longer being Queen, it's a breaking and a mending too. My heart must be broken by this and mended, made new, made different. A new person. This is part of me no longer being Queen, it is all a part of the one story. She said _even if you ask me to die, I will die for you, because I love you to the end of the earth, you are mine, my special child, and I will always love you. So just ask, and I will give. It will be the last thing I will give. After I have given it, take what is left and live your life. Take your lost prince and bring him home_.

"And… and I did. I asked her to rest, to sleep, to go. Even though the reasons I gave were so selfish and silly and felt shallow, she said yes, of course, I am happy to because it is you asking. So she climbed into bed with me…"

Sheeta stopped speaking. For a while she was silent and the tears flowed.

"She lay down, and we cuddled and I hugged her and told her I loved her and she said she loved me. And we went to sleep."  
"Sheeta. Please, please, enough. That's enough. We should leave."

He stood, somehow he did. He uncoiled the dull silent stone's cord from her fingers and put it around her neck. He offered her his hands and she took them and he pulled her up. He lit his lantern and they were stood in a cavern. Just a cave, a ordinary cave like countless others. And with an arm around her waist, supporting her, he led her from the cold dark chamber and home.

And they never looked back. Looking back was over now. From that moment on, they looked only forwards. Always on and forwards and always in hope.

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_22 April 2007 _

_For author notes about Chapter Fifty Seven, please see my forum (click on my pen name)_


	59. Chapter 58 : Commoner

**Chapter Fifty Eight – Commoner  
**

Councillor Kamaesa knew. From the images in her head and the voices and the way the flames of the fire danced she knew. It had been done, it was over. The last Engine had ceased running. She could feel the mountain beneath her feet still and cool and quiet. There was a calm there too, a gladness, a release. What the woman who came out of the ground would be like she didn't know, she felt only peace and rest. She hoped the woman who had once been a queen would know these feelings too.

It was daylight when they emerged exhausted and dirty and blinking into the early spring sunshine. Pazu, the least infirm of the three put an arm around both ladies waists and assisted them down the hill. He stowed them in the boat like so much baggage and from some place he didn't know he had, found the strength to row them back. Sheeta fell into a light disturbed sleep and the Councillor, sitting with her in the back of the boat, held her and wrapped her in both spare coats. At one point Kamaesa turned and looked back at the mountain and said her own private goodbye.

This was a new world now, a new nation, a new people. They were a republic, no longer a kingdom, the last queen was gone. The old woman blinked in the bright clear air on that breezy lake and was glad. Now, finally, it would be over. People could put down their weapons and be at peace, like the person under the mountain.

With the fresh air biting, Pazu lifted the almost sleeping girl from the boat, and wading ashore, carried her home. At the doorway to the house he stopped. The room had been used as a dormitory and the furniture had all been pushed to one side, but the councillors were all awake, despite the early hour.

"It is done, isn't it?" Auyhonia asked  
"It is. It's over," Pazu replied  
"How is she?"  
"Exhausted. She needs rest. Please, if you would excuse me."

He took her straight up to bed, undressed her and bathed her and asked Shuna to take up water and a warm broth should she awake but he was under no circumstances to disturb her with questions, let her sleep.

Downstairs Pazu apologized and said the final part of the ceremony would have to wait, perhaps until later in the day, perhaps until tomorrow. Auyhonia was sympathetic and Kamaesa would find accommodation for them in the village. Kamaesa said she would find a reliable messenger and send them to Penaerth with the news. Within three days Gondoa would know.

--I--  
---o-o-oOo-o-o---  
I I

"Pazu…?"  
"Hm?"  
"What day is it?"  
"The next day. Forty three of Rhayadhirrin."  
"What happened?"  
"You're no longer Queen of Gondoa."  
"Did I sleep?"  
"Hm, a whole day and a whole night. Twenty six hours."

It was morning again and Pazu who had sat beside her bed all day and all night was only just awake.

"I want to sleep more."  
"You do whatever you like, my love."  
"She is gone?"  
"You did it Sheeta. You amazed me and you did it. Yes, the last Engine has stopped running."  
"Except Laputa's."  
"Hm, yes, of course, except Laputa's."  
"I wonder where she is?"  
"Free, no man can interfere with her now."  
"Good. I'm glad. Because…"  
"You shouldn't talk too much."  
"No, I'm fine. You know why Suethelmae was so strong?"  
"Sheeta, you don't have to tell me this now."  
"What I went through yesterday…"  
"The day before yesterday."  
"Oh, well, what I went through with her, she had been through with all the other Engines that have gone to sleep. She talked to them all, knew them all, at the end she welcomed them to her. As the last, she was all of them. And do you know where they all are now?"

He looked into her weary blue eyes and didn't know.

"Laputa. Not dead, not asleep. She didn't die, but was set free. Free of men. All of them now are together in Laputa."

Pazu got up from the bedside and walked to the window. It was musty in here, two days of worried bodies had dulled the air. He opened the shutters and swung wide the window and fresh air poured in. He looked at the view, across Sheeta's garden and the orchard beyond and up the hill to the other farms. To the left was the lake and beyond that the mountain. It had sheer faces of black rock, tumbled piles of scree, trees like children gathered happily around a parent and above all this, white peaks of snow. It was beautiful and threatening at the same time. And it was, today, this first of all days, just a mountain. He knew now, he could relax in the knowledge that it would remain here for all time. Just a rock. The hills would have moonlight on them but they would not be an island, they would just be hills.

He drew in a huge breath of fresh air. It smelled good. Spring was coming. Things were growing.

"Sheeta?"

Silence. He turned. Her eyes were closed. He returned to the bed and stood, watching her as she slept. He bent down and pressed his lips to her smooth untroubled forehead.

"Sleep, my love, you did well. I'm so proud of you."

--I--  
---o-o-oOo-o-o---  
I I

It was late in that day that Sheeta awoke and was able to participate in the Ceremony of Transfer and the Ritual of Abdication. She didn't care at all about the latter, she was glad, but the former was hard. Giving up the stone was hard, it felt like parting with a loved one and she shed her last tears that day, the last tears she would shed for a very long time. The next time she would shed tears they would not be tears of sadness but tears of pain. Giving birth was sheer agony and she cried the day her daughter was born, but every tear, every stab of pain, every wracking, screaming cramp was worth it.

Both ceremonies were conducted in the open air, in a field behind the communal hall where the trees and hedges were in bud and lambs gamboled in the adjacent meadow. For the last time, Sheeta wore her robes of Laputan Royal Green. After this day she put them away, and looked at them only rarely. She did wear them again, a few times, but only in private, and only for him. For him she never stopped being royalty, his princess, his queen. And the times she did wear the green robes it was only for a while, so that he could take them off her again.

The whole village and most of the two nearby villages came to witness these two strange ceremonies, ceremonies that none of them had seen before. And afterwards when Auyhonia officially declared her to be of common blood and the last of the four royal houses to be extinct, Sheeta rejoiced. A number of the Councillors were upset, and there were a good number of wet eyes in that field. But not Sheeta's. She was the happiest person there. Well, perhaps the second happiest.

A man stood at the back of the crowd. He had long red-brown hair and despite the chill breeze he wore only a loose shirt and leggings. He looked now like a typical Gondoan farmer. He didn't need to be in the front row or hear what was being said. He knew what was going on. He knew the girl up there could handle this, she didn't need him. After what she'd achieved two days ago this was easy. And besides, he had found a patch of burnt ground near some bushes behind the hall. It surprised him that it even existed because in dreams no trace was left on the ground, was it? He recalled a conversation at this patch of ground some weeks previously, and knew now who was the victor and who was the loser of that particular argument. Pazu looked at the burnt patch of ground and at the fresh young blades of grass that were already growing there, reclaiming the ground on which _Maerth-dhu_ had stood, and where he had been defeated.

Pazu looked up. Birds were singing in the trees, spring was here, and with the spring, like all young men, his mind turned to thoughts of love.

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_22 – 23 April 2007 _

_For author notes about Chapter Fifty Eight, please see my forum (click on my pen name)_


	60. Chapter 59 : Work

**Chapter Fifty Nine – Work  
**

Pazu gave Councillor Kamaesa his declaration of intent, to be read out in every town and posted up on the doors of the communal halls of all principal places. Essentially he put into writing his _Furtuen Caemarth_ speech but leaving out a few of the more personal details and adding emphasis to his love of a rural life. This, combined with his subsequent actions seemed to be enough to placate the more excitable southern Councillors and towns.

Somebody anonymously sent a letter to Chamberlain Lammnia in which it was pointed out that a little known and arcane law existed which was enacted by the year 3828 Parlement declaring it illegal for a Councillor to bear arms or command a military force. A subsequent debate by the Gathering found Councillor Ptuomasa of Heyng to be in breach of this law and he was barred from office.

And while these political maneuverings rumbled away in the background there were many things to do. The late winter ploughing and sowing was done, the slate roof needed repinning in a few places and some of the stones of the grain tower had to be repointed. The apple and pear trees in the orchard needed pruning and Sheeta cleared the ground in the vegetable garden and planted this years crop. Pazu dug over the nearest corner of the orchard for her and bought her some young strawberry plants.

Later in spring the yaoko needed shearing of their carpet-like winter coats. This was a disgusting job, the pelts were immensely heavy and stank to high heaven. All the men of the village would get together and share this onerous task, the animals beforehand being painted on their foreheads with the owners mark. All the animals were then herded into the common field behind the hall and a series of temporary shearing pounds were set up, the men working in teams of four to remove the pelts from one animal at a time with the big hand shears. The men worked naked except for cloths tied around their middles and there was considerable competition between groups. The prize was a barrel of ale for each man of the team that sheared the most hides in the two day event.

There were all sorts of tactics employed to frighten the animals of competitors or to work in pairs in shifts or to work as a team around the clock. The women folk of the teams encouraged them on with songs, music or even lewd promises of bed when the job was done. Or the girls might distract other teams with similar outrageous behaviour. The shearing didn't stop at dusk and continued through the night under the light of countless lanterns. At the end of the two days there was one field full of strange looking thin bald mountain oxen who shivered and seemed rather puzzled, and a second field full of sweating, filth caked almost naked men, all of whom were thirsty enough to drink a lake.

Pazu was in a team with Shuna and two other young men, Tomba and Asbela who he was getting to know quite well. Pazu wasn't much use, being kept working most of the time getting the pelts out of the way and shoveling the dung which the animals produced in disgusting quantities when they were scared (the main reason opposing teams employed scare tactics). But Shuna's two friends were experts and with Shuna helping, and Sheeta and Amadea and the two young girlfriends of the others cheering and encouraging them on they won. It took a monumental effort but they did it by only two and a half pelts more than the next team.

As Pazu and the others collapsed into a sea of stinking dung, the women pulled off their shirts and jumped naked off the fences and waded in to hug them. Squishing in the foul bath the eight of them collapsed together hugging and laughing.

It was then traditional for everyone to run down the street and into the lake, the women joining their men to bathe, and in some cases reward them. And then, clean and dried and dressed, came the beer and the food. As the eight of them sat on cushions in the hall eating, drinking and laughing Pazu caught Sheeta looking at him. She had a mouth full of baked fish pie, a goblet of fruit cordial in one hand and she was quietly sat, just watching him. He stopped eating and looked back, smiling at her. She gave him a big wink.

"What?" he asked  
"Just looking," she grinned, "Just looking. Because I can."

He leaned forward, put a hand behind her neck and pulled her to him, mouth full of fish pie and all. They parted two minutes later, breathless.

"Oh," she said, "wow."  
"What? It was just a kiss. I only kissed you. Because I can. Oh, and by the way. The thirty third of the month, keep that day free."  
"Why?"  
"You're getting married."  
"Pazu! Yes! YES! _**YES!**_"

She leapt up and hugged him, and then, their meal forgotten, dragged him off for a dance. A long one.

**  
**_- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - _

_24 - 25 April 2007 _

_For author notes about Chapter Fifty Nine, please see my forum (click on my pen name)_


	61. Chapter 60 : Union Part One : Soul

**Chapter Sixty – Union Part One : Soul  
**

Pazu was stunned and overcome by the complexities of a Gondoan wedding. To begin with he and Sheeta lived apart for a week beforehand. She went to stay at Shuna's farm and had several women for company, including Shuna's wife Amadea and her eldest married daughter. Pazu remained in their farmhouse and Shuna and the four brothers came and lived there. Shuna's youngest children stayed with an aunt, only married men were allowed to attend upon Pazu and likewise married women attended on Sheeta.

For the first few days they took Pazu out and instructed him in the basics of behaviour in public for a married man. How to wear his sword and carry his bow, the greetings he should use, who he was and wasn't socially superior to, and so on. One day, in a street near the centre of the village a strange thing came down the lane towards them. Two women were carrying what looked like a red tent, sedan chair style, the side and end cloths of which reached the floor. Bhema and Khuaema ushered him to the side of the lane. The red tent went past, filled with giggling.

"What on earth is that?"  
"Your betrothed," Khuaema explained, "she cannot be seen by anyone except her attendants this week, and especially not by _you_. If you so much as catch a glimpse of an ankle the wedding must be put back a week."  
"You people are mad." Pazu observed.

Later in the week Pazu was instructed on the duties of a husband. He found this very embarrassing and pretended not to know anything about it. He was also taught about being a host to visitors in his own home and the mysteries of the _telle_ were explained. He and Sheeta didn't own one, he said. He was told not to worry about that.

But during his spare time he worked on Sheeta's wedding present. He cleaned out the scullery and worked to convert it to a room more to her liking. Outside he dug drainage and laid a soil pipe to a sump outside the property while inside he arranged a second pump and laid a pipe that ran from the well under the garden. He worked away happily, it was good to be using his hands and he taught himself tiling this week, something he'd never done before and his woodworking and metalworking skills were put to good use.

--I--  
---o-o-oOo-o-o---  
I I

He opened his eyes. It was today. The day. Today it would happen. Thirty Three of Umsennemar. It was spring, and it was also the Equinox. Day and night of equal length. Two equal halves together in perfect balance. Night and day, black and white, male and female, sky and soil, boy and girl. It was a good day to be married. Today it would happen. Today a lot of things would happen. He lay, partly awake, the warmth of the bed cocooning him, and let his thoughts stray around him. What was he feeling? Nervousness, yes, and also worry, fear even? Trepidation, but as well as that there was another set of emotions. Calm, hope, anticipation too. Happiness. Yes, and eagerness.

He hadn't seen her for a week, yet he had hardly thought of anything else. Whenever he shut his eyes, hers were there, her blue-grey soul, wide and clear, calm and knowing, her pale skin, that pretty button nose. And her hair, that beautiful sunrise of hair that he loved to put his hands and face in. He would be talking with Shuna and would breathe in and her smell would be there, filling his mind, and he would tingle with the memory of it.

They had been together only twice, in the cave and in the inn. Of course, apart from this last week, they had slept together every night since and frequently without clothes, but apart from those two nights he had never since known her, they had kissed and cuddled and said goodnight. It was how they both wanted it. Once they had returned to her home they had chosen to save themselves for their wedding night. Then the Gathering's decision had come and that had changed everything and it hadn't seemed right at all after that.

But today? Today it would happen. The thought went round and round in his head. It would be today. She and he would be legally joined as one. And tonight. Tonight also they would be joined. Of all the thoughts tumbling around in the plunge pool of his emotions it was anticipation that was strongest and which surfaced and, causing a warm bloom in his centre, carried him along as that day began.

But then again… today wasn't just about today was or? Or tonight. Today was much more. Today was tomorrow as well, and the day after that and the next, and the next. And onwards. Today was for ever, it was the rest of his life, and her life. Today was commitment. Today was until he died, however many years that might be. Another fifty years even. The thought of spending fifty years with her made him feel faint with longing, with happiness: he knew that was something he wanted. With her, for ever with her and her only. And today wasn't just a promise of that but a promise to _commit_ to that. No matter what happened, whether there be happiness and good harvests and health and bounty, or whether there was illness and disease, disability, accidents, anger, sadness, arguments, poor harvests, no money, starvation even. Whatever befell them, he was committing today to face it. Because with her he absolutely would and could face it.

He lifted his arms and placed his hands behind his head and lay for a few moments considering this. He wondered if she too was lying in a bed in another house right this moment and thinking about the day, the days, the years ahead. He hoped she was.

Aloud he told her he loved her, then rose, washed and breakfasted with his companions. Then, dressed in simple clothes the brothers took him around the village and he greeted everyone, saying a symbolic goodbye to them as a single man. It was a warm day, with a light fresh breeze, but dull, there was complete cloud cover.

Back at the farm he was given a light meal and then undressed and bathed by the men. He wasn't allowed to do anything for himself. It was part of the wedding ritual, Shuna said, he had died as a single man now, had gone around the village saying his goodbyes. Now he could do nothing for himself except what was required in the marriage ceremony. They led him, in his skin, into the parlour and applied sweet smelling oils all over and brushed his hair. Then they dressed him.

First the _poloti_ or underwear which were like loose shorts and reached to mid-thigh. Their origin was from a protective under cloth that kept the skin from chafing while riding. Over these the _puorthtemi _gathered in at the ankle and cut wide and flowing at the thigh and knee. His shirt was the usual _hakkaemi_ which had no buttons but was, in the female style, made up of a large triangle of material, the narrow points of which crossed at the front, wound around the back and were tied at the spine low down, so that a deep slice of the chest was visible where the two sides crossed over. It was worn loose allowing air to circulate within. The coat, however was beautiful. It wasn't a _haemshi _a stiff formal open robe, but a softer fitted coat with the tails cut wide to lie over the baggy _puorthtemi _and not press them flat to his legs. The coat was called _monor_ meaning 'morning'. It was based on the traditional morning coat gentlemen would wear in towns but this style was exaggerated and used only for weddings. It had the usual stand up collar and wide shoulders but unlike the _haemshi_ the lapels closed in a vee neck below the breast and there were three large gold buttons holding it closed to the waist, where it was tightly cut and fitted. Below the waist the coat tails swept out widely. On the left side of the _monor_ the tails were split and this cut was heavily decorated with stitching and brocade. It was through this slit, he was told, that his ceremonial short sword, the _k__humeht_ in its scabbard would hang. He was given low soft boots to wear, fine gloves and a crown of flowers sat on his red-brown hair.

Everything he wore was silk, and everything was a rich cream colour, a beautiful colour. Even the flowers were off-white spring lilies. He had a lot of questions but Shuna wouldn't answer them all.

"I spoke to Sheeta about what I wanted us to wear and she told me we had no choice, everything was traditional."  
"She was right. This was made for you this week, from the measurements we took the day we arrived, your bride is having the same done for her, what she wears too is traditional."

_my bride_, Pazu liked the sound of that.

"The colour, does it mean anything?"  
"It does," answered Shuna, "but I suggest you ask your bride about that."

Pazu noticed Peta and Torhpa exchanging knowing looks. Something was going on here. Again.

"Who is paying for the clothes?"  
"You are of course! We took two yaoko from your shed some weeks ago and sold them. You did not think us poor simple farmers had paid for all this do you?"

Pazu never knew what to believe. Finally he was dressed. Bhema slipped a final lily in his buttonhole.

"There," he said, "done. You look magnificent. If I were not a hairy arsed bearded farmer I would marry you myself."  
"I envy her, she is going to have a wonderful day," Khuaema chipped in.  
"Never mind the day!" Shuna spoke what was on all their minds, "it is tonight she will enjoy, eh, Pazu? Make her scream my man, make her scream!"

He gave Pazu a heavy slap on the shoulder while Pazu blushed furiously. Getting used to Gondoan ways was simply impossible. Shuna leaned close, as though about to impart wise words.

"I hope she is a maiden Pazu, because part of the wedding ritual is we check the sheets in the morning. And if she is not," he gave a slow wink, "then you had best get her to tear the skin and draw blood from your back with her nails. That will do instead."  
"_Yau-taemo_, I'll remember that."

Pazu had no idea at all what he was talking about.

"So whose blood will it be, yours or hers? Hm?"  
"I'm not telling you that!"  
"Oh. I see," he grinned, teasing mercilessly, "yours then?"

Pazu went so red the bigger man needed no further answer.

"And you played all innocent with me when I was describing what you had to do! That is an evening's ale you owe me, Pazu, and I have the memory of a mountain ox. I do not forget."

Despite his experience with Sheeta, Pazu really had no idea what Shuna was getting at. In the cave the following morning he'd not noticed anything and Sheeta wasn't bleeding now.

But there was no time to puzzle over that, there came a knock at the door. Peta opened it and a little girl of about ten was there. She bowed.

"Please, sir, the lady is ready."  
"Thank you, Tabeena, the gentleman is on his way."  
"Well, Pazu," Shuna turned to him, "are you ready?"  
"I am."  
"No. I meant, _are you ready?_ For this?"

Pazu understood. He drew in a big breath. He was nervous, he could feel his heart fluttering.

"Yes, Shuna, I am."  
"Very well. Torhpa, the horses."  
"Shuna, before we go."

Pazu stuck out his hand. Shuna looked at it.

"In Numenaor it's a way of showing friendship. Take my hand."

Shuna grasped Pazu's offered hand, Pazu shook.

"Thank you, Shuna, you have been a great help to me this week. You're a good friend."  
"That is alright, Pazu. My eldest boy Othama is twelve. His _Pead-lth-u'or_ will come in a year or two and another year or two after that, he will marry. I would like you to be one of his man servants during his week of preparation. You can tell him what to do in the bedroom, eh?"  
"Thank you, I'd be honoured."  
"Oh, I almost forgot. I may be just a farmer but this is a present from me. Raise your arms."

Shuna slipped a sword belt around Pazu's hips and buckled it. The _k__humeht _in its decorative scabbard hung off his left hip and parted the _monor_ on that side.

"You're giving me a _k__humeht_? Thank you."  
"Use it wisely. A good Gondoan only ever cuts animal meat with it. A bad Gondoan cuts men with it. You understand?"  
"Yes."  
"Very well, let us go and meet that bride of yours, hm?"  
"Oh, wait. There is something I want to do. Five minutes."

Pazu picked up what he needed from a shelf by the hearth and went into the kitchen and climbed the stair inside the grain tower. He reached the roof and let the hatch drop closed behind him. For a minute or two he looked around at the view, at the mountain, the lake, the woodland and the fields. He looked over the village and saw coloured streamers and flowers decorating the main space by the hall. He saw crowds gathering there. He looked up at the dull sky which had begun to lighten, the weather was improving. They might have clear skies and sun by this evening. Then, facing the village he raised the thing he held. He wet the mouthpiece and experimentally wiggled the valves. Then drawing in a breath he played. He chose a hopeful happy tune he had known for years, one he had played for his father. It began simply and gently but built up in pace and volume, becoming a celebration, an enthusiastic call, the shout of a young happy man. He finished and inside himself he knew, now, he was ready.

The six men mounted up in the yard. One of the brothers lent Pazu a spare horse. The animal was beautifully clean, groomed and brushed to perfection. A chestnut gelding, three or four years old. His hooves shone and there were more white lilies woven into his red mane and tail, and along his bridle.

"His name is _Luth'Huernen_," Khuaema informed him, "and be careful, he is swift."

They rode out of the yard and around the landward side of the village, approaching the communal hall from the Solstice Hill, down the field where Sheeta had spent her last moments as a queen and by a simple ceremony had been declared of common blood and able to marry a common man. From the slope Pazu could see again the ribbons and flowers in the open space at the far end of the hall. They dismounted at the field end of the hall where there was a second door. A few men were gathered here. As they approached one of them sounded a horn which was answered by another at the far end of the building.

"You know what to do? The ceremony was explained to you?"  
"Yes."  
"It is only a short walk Pazu, but I pray _Utomu_ is with you at every step. And remove your gloves and your boots. Bare hands and bare feet inside. And I will be right behind you."

Pazu merely nodded, he was too nervous to reply. He took a breath, spent a moment to calm himself. The doors swung open and he stepped forward.

The hall was crowded. Cushions lay in concentric semi circular rows with everyone facing the centre of one wall. Half way down that side of the hall, opposite the hearth was a raised area with a cloth covered table upon it and against the wall behind, two throne-like chairs. Over one was draped a shimmering cream silken cloth, the other had a bright red covering. Both were festooned with garlands of flowers. A low fire burned in the hearth. But hung from every beam above, every panel to the sides and even scattered on the floor at his feet were flowers. Bunches and bunches of them. He was staggered by how many. From where they had all been gathered he couldn't guess. But the smell was wonderful, the gentle scents mingled into a powerful sea of sweetness, overwhelming and dense enough to swallow. Leading in from the two opposite doors were aisles that led at a tangent through the semi circles of guests to the central hearth where a space then led to the raised table.

Music began to play. There was a light-coloured beat of a drum; a bok, bok, bok sound, pleasant and cheerful, not too fast. Behind the drum, wind instruments began and a gentle and stirring melody built up, weaving and flowing and building. Then atop this several girls held round gourds and tilted them, rolled them from side to side making a rushing noise. The gourds were filled with dry seeds and as they were rolled around the contents flowed and rattled. At times the sound was like rain, and at others like waves lapping on a shore. Or again it was the passing of the wind through wheat or perhaps the tops of trees bending and rustling to the shiver of the wind. A beautiful sound, ethereal and earthy.

Pazu took his first step, then another, and a third. He felt the soft petals of the flowers under his bare feet and the ticklish coarse matting below that. People turned to look at him, many smiled and nodded their heads and to his many friends he nodded solemnly back. All were dressed in their finest. At _Suethelhin_ they had worn working clothes and got dirty in the partying. They had looked like peasant farmers. Here, however he glimpsed for the first time another side of this community. He realized that these people knew comfort and financial security. They could afford a fine set of clothes and he noticed how smartly dressed they all were. A girl put her hand out and pushed something at him. He recognized Shuna's daughter and he took what she offered. It was a scrap of paper. He unfolded it and read the single word message.

_SMILE!  
_  
He put the paper in his pocket and did as he was instructed, grinning from ear to ear at the girl's kindness. He continued his walk, the fire was closer, people continued to turn and smile and many reached out and encouraged him with pats to the shoulder and back. He noticed many of the young girls staring in awe. Did he look like their expressions seemed to indicate? He didn't know; he wanted only to be what she needed.

Opposite him the other aisle led away to the far set of doors. The two aisles were not aligned with each other but at a slight angle and it wasn't until he was half way to the hearth that he could see. And he saw… something. It was red, a rich crimson, bordering towards purple rather than orange. It shone in the fire- and torchlight and as it moved it was like blood flowing. There was a very wide skirt, it swept the floor and was stiff and spread outwards like a paper fan, heavily layered and pleated, as it moved it swept up some of the wild flowers scattered on the ground and pushed them ahead like a small wave. It was so wide it filled the aisle. Above this magnificent skirt was a _monor_, very much like his own and again a deep glowing crimson. If anything its cut was even more exaggerated than his own. The waist and bodice of it were very tight and narrow and its deep vee lapels were open to the waist. Below the waist the skirts of the coat were cut wide and flaring so that they sat on top of the huge skirt. It too was silk or perhaps panelled in satin and it shone. The wide military cuffs hung down to mid thigh and again the shoulders were cut wide. Within the open throat of the coat he caught a glimpse of bare flesh but her upper half was concealed by a veil, again in red and of a heavy gauze, her hair, face, neck, bosom and shoulders were hidden.

This apparition, looking for all the world like a headless ghost, moved slowly and gently towards him. He could not see it was her, but he knew it was. Even if this were not his wedding day and this amazing sight were to come towards him in an ordinary street he would know her. He knew that walk well, he had watched it many times. Under the huge skirt he knew her small bare feet were being placed exactly one in front of the other, down a single plough furrow and this slow measured style of walking caused her hips to sway in a certain way. He knew that motion too and had watched and enjoyed it often.

Behind her she had a companion, a witness, it was Councillor Kamaesa.

He reached the end of his aisle and she did hers. For a minute he looked at her but could barely see through the veil. The outline of her head was visible but few details. He knew she was looking at him however and he smiled and lowered his head a little. Opposite him the crimson apparition's top section dipped slightly then drew up again. It was amusing to watch and his smile broadened.

To his right and her left was the dais. Behind the covered table stood the monk who would marry them. Pazu had been alarmed when they had first met, weeks ago, to discuss this day. His name was Ehuma and he came from the town upriver. It was his costume Pazu had found strange. He wore long black robes and a bright orange waist sash but on his head was a strange construction, it was a round hat that had wide wings, wider than his shoulders. It looked for all the world like a crow had died, and stiff from rigor mortis had fallen beak first and embedded itself in his hat. Throughout their first meeting he had been unable to do anything but stare at this alarming dead bird. Pazu was very glad the monk had worn his headdress at their meeting. If today had been the first time he'd encountered it, Pazu felt sure it would have traumatized his day.

Ehuma spread his arms and beckoned.

"Come."

Mirroring the others moves they both turned and approached the table, walking side by side, not quite touching. Pazu felt the edge of her skirt brush his bare foot and the contact just with her clothing was electric. At the dais they parted and walked around the two ends of the table, turning inwards to face each other behind it, the monk between them and a step back toward the thrones. They stopped, two yards apart. They looked at each other but Pazu still could not see her eyes, he merely felt them on him, moving gently over him. Shuna and Kamaesa moved to stand either side of the monk and a little behind.

After a short interval the introductory music ended although throughout the ceremony in the background a low wind instrument quietly moaned out its mellow song, rising and falling like a person breathing. Amadea, Shuna's wife came forward and stood near the table on the raised platform. She spoke.

"The reading is from the fourteenth chapter of the book of Ryn: Ryn is out hunting and comes upon Fuhlahana in the forest.

"It was that day when he had hunted long. Tired and dusty, he had met no quarry. His stomach was empty and his lips were dry. Evening was coming and he needed rest. Ryn came upon a clearing where he hoped to find a deer or boar with which to make of his meal. Sat upon the grass however was a woman. Upon lowering his bow Ryn approached her and said unto her _Lady are you lost or injured? May this simple man help you?_ To which Fuhlahana replied _I am a woman lost in heart for my husband is gone to his ancestors and my children are grown. I am not injured yet my pain is great_. To which Ryn replied _Take my hand, let me lift you. Even though you be lost, yet I have found you. Even though you be lonely I am here. Even though you be careworn to such as I, you appear fair. Even though you are a mother to such as I, you are pure. Come with me._

"And so it was that broken and alone did Fuhlahana find love in a place where she expected it least. Ryn took her home and bathed her and fed her and cared for her wounded heart and they were married and she lived to the end of her days faithful unto only him and in delight of him.

"These are the words recorded by Ryn, Prince of Travellers."

Music then began to play, a traditional song sung before marriage. Pazu could not sing it but he listened to the rising and falling Gondoan harmonies and watched Sheeta singing. Even though he could not see her mouth, he could see her movements and hear her voice. He simply stood and took pleasure in being near her. The song ended and the monk raised his arms. Looking at each of them in turn and smiling, Ehuma then faced the room.

"Friends, neighbours, loved ones, people. We meet here in celebration. Today we gather to witness the joining together of a woman and a man in the hallowed union of marriage. Before _Konuguen_ one woman and one man shall today give their lives only to each other and no other. By our presence here do we witness these vows and this union, making of this day both a celebration and legal contract. This contract belongs to _Konuguen _and is of his making. No woman or man is worthy of breaking it. It exists until death sunders it.

"Is there here present any person who can evidence any reason under _Konuguen's _laws that prevents this woman and this man from being joined in wedlock?"

Pazu waited, wondering. Would some Councillor stand up and start ranting about some arcane law? Or would Keya perhaps rush in brandishing his sword? The silence dragged on, and on.

_enough_, Pazu thought, _get on with it_. He sighed and smiled at the headless red creature before him. Its upper part dipped slightly again in a small nod. If she did that much more he would laugh, he knew he would. It must be nerves.

"Very well, let us proceed. The vows you are about to take are to be made in the name of _Konuguen_, who is judge of all and who knows all the secrets of our hearts: therefore if either of you knows a reason why you may not lawfully marry, you must declare it now."  
**  
**Sheeta smiled a hidden smile: _no, we took care of that I think._ She saw Pazu smile at her. It was an interesting sensation to be standing in full sight of him and yet be concealed. She could see every emotion that played across his face, of her he could see nothing.

Ehuma stepped forwards between them and from the table he picked up the first of the symbols, a stone the size of a fist. He stepped back and held it in his outstretched palm.

"_Sheeta o-Bruaendell_, reach out your right hand and touch the world."

Sheeta lifted her arm and placed a palm on the stone. With the very wide military cuff on her sleeve, Pazu could see up it. See smooth white skin to her elbow, vanishing into fragrant mysterious gloom.

"_Pazsu o-Numenaor_, reach out your right hand and touch the world."

He mirrored her action.

"Both of you. Hold your world in your hands."

The monk lowered his palm and the stone remained held between the two pressed palms.

"Say after me. I, _Sheeta o-Bruaendell…" _

Ehuma led each of them, in turn, through the same vow.

"I, _Sheeta o-Bruaendell _hold this stone that is the world. It is my world. It is your world. It is our world and I share it with you. Like the hard stone I share with you a hard resolve. Like the hard stone I commit myself to only you. Let this hard stone be a sign that I understand that at times a life committed to only one person can be difficult. This I accept. But also, like the hard stone, our union will be built on solid rock, a solid foundation of truth and trust."

Pazu listened to a voice he had not heard for… it seemed like years. It was delicious, like fine mist and the caress of the summer breeze. Her voice was so pale and faint. She must be nervous, more so than he.

He spoke after her and he looked into her face the whole time and made sure his voice was strong and resonant. He committed as much emotion to his voice as he could.

They lay the stone back on the table and Ehmua picked up a lump of clay. The ritual of them jointly holding the clay was repeated.

"Both of you, hold the soil of fertility in your hands."  
"I, _Sheeta o-Bruaendell _hold this clay that is my body. This is the earth from which I come and the earth to which I shall return. Today is my birth and until my death I will be with you, _Pazsu o-Numenaor. _This earth, this clay can be moulded. Like the clay I promise to be pliant and understanding and forgiving."

Next, a piece of tree bark.

"Both of you, hold the tree of life in your hands."  
"I, _Sheeta o-Bruaendell _hold this wood that is my future. On the wood the craftsman carves his design. On me carve your design. Change my future and make it your future. Carve deeply the lines of your life upon me."

Each time she spoke her voice was stronger. As she spoke he watched her and his one thought when his eyes were on her was _I love you_. With his eyes he encouraged her. And with his strong words spoken after hers as they held each symbol, he tried to give her encouragment and strength. He felt her relaxing and responding. He was glad. Next a bowl of water. This they had to hold aloft, her palm under it and his palm cupping hers. Exquisite contact with her skin. Her hand was cool and he could feel it trembling.

"Both of you, hold in the palms of your hands the water of life."  
"I, _Sheeta o-Bruaendell _hold this water that is my life. Water gives life and is the spirit of life. I pour my life on you, I pour myself out to you. Pour yourself on me. I ask to be refreshed and to drink of you. With my life spirit I will obey you and lay down before you. My life spirit is no longer mine but belongs to you."

In response Pazu found this very hard. He felt a lump in his throat. He meant every word, he wanted to give himself in every way, to obey, to serve, to devote himself. For her he would gladly become nothing. He blinked back a dampness from his eyes.

Next a small pottery oil lamp, the flame curling smooth and golden. They both held it in their hands. This also was held aloft, they shared its weight. She was trembling less.

"Both of you, hold in the palms of your hands the light of your love."  
"I, _Sheeta o-Bruaendell _hold this fire that is my passion. My passion burns only for you, it is a flame that will never go out. In the darkness of the night you will know me by the light of my passion. This flame is my love, by its warmth and radiance people will know I am yours, I am lit from within by a light that you kindle. My love is for you."

Her voice caressed him and left him aching. He wanted to hold her now, right this minute and hug her and tell her he would never go. And finally, the last symbol. Ehmua spoke.

"Sheeta, please lift your veil."

She slowly raised her hands to the lower edge of the red gauze where it lay on her breast. Taking hold of it she raised the screen that had kept her hidden. In the deep vee of the _monor's_ lapels Pazu saw a bodice above the skirt. Beneath the _monor_ she wore a dress. Above it her bosom was raised and the top half of where she curved was bare. Where the two parts of her separated and were lifted there was an exquisite white valley. Pazu deliberately chose not to gaze there, now was not the time. Above her breast the rising red veil revealed her neck and throat. Around her throat was a tight band of velvet, a red choker, like a perfect line of her blood. A tiny gold emblem was pinned to the front of it, it was so small he could hardly make it out but then he noticed it was a broad leaf beside a mushroom. He smiled at that. Normally the symbol of a medicine maker, he knew what she meant by showing him that. The small piece of jewellery was a message to him, a message no-one else would understand.

And then more, more was revealed. She was doing this deliberately slowly. Teasing him. He saw her mouth, her lips were not painted but her natural dusty pink. Then her cheeks a little pink with her emotion. Then her eyes. Once he saw her eyes he could look nowhere else. There was nothing else in the room on which he would rather rest his gaze. They were just as he had remembered them this past week. Wide and clear, the whites startlingly bright, the pupils dilated, the irises that lovely deep grey-blue like the colour of mist in the moonlight. Unlike at the Gathering when she had worn heavy formal court make up, today she wore none at all, her face was clear and fresh and natural. She needed no embellishment, she was perfection, she needed nothing more. She needed, he thought, one thing only, his arms around her. She lifted the veil clear of her face and lay it back over her hair. Of her hair he could see little, a few light strands only lay down over her forehead. It had been arranged up in a formal style but was still concealed.

And then, as though teasing him, she tilted her head a little to one side and made a small smile, just as she had that night in the barn when it had rained and he had discovered that when you kiss someone you must tilt your head a little.

_take my hand_, he thought, _lead me around this corner, this corner in our lives that leads to a road I have not trodden._

He smiled back and her small smile became a wide sunbeam of light and joy, he felt himself grinning like an idiot and her cheeks flushed pinker.

"Lift up your hands and make of your palms a cup."

They did so, two pairs of cupped hands touching at the fingertips.

"I, _Sheeta o-Bruaendell _hold this air that is my breath and my trust. My every breath is breathed with you. Each breath in my body do I give you. My life is entrusted to you. I promise to take the trust you place in me and honour it. I promise never to deceive, never to cheat, never to lie, never to disobey. Trust me for I am truth."

Pazu then repeated the oath.

"Now, move together and place your trust in each other."

They both knew what to do, they had practiced this move a number of times. They opened their hands and moved slowly together so that their outstretched arms began to interlace like the tines of two forks pushed together. As they closed the gap between them so that they halted at arms length, their open palms fitted snugly around the others face, cupping and holding the cheeks. His hands found soft warmth and he held her. Her delicate hands came against his bare skin. He wanted to turn his face and kiss her fingers, but that was for later.

"Say after me..."  
"I hold you in my hands. I will never let you go. We join together and will never be parted. Hold onto me and be with me. In times of loving cherish me. In times of pain soothe me. In times of joy share with me. In times of anguish comfort me. In times of danger protect me. At all times be with me as I am with you. In you I place my honour and trust."

"And say after me…"  
"I _Sheeta o-Bruaendell_ take you, _Pazu o-Numenaor_ to be my husband, to have for each day and for ever. To hold close and in union. To be beside in good times and bad, healthy or sick, rich or poor, loving, cherishing, obeying and worshipping. I am yours and only death will part us, according to _Konuguen__'s_ holy law this is my solemn vow."

His face split by a wide smile of joy, Pazu in his turn spoke his vow. He could hardly speak, he was smiling so much. They moved apart again.

"Witnesses, the outward symbols if you please."

Ehuma held out a book, Sheeta and Pazu both stared at it in shock. It had a clear glass cover that they knew was not glass and as Ehuma opened it and the thin silk-like pages flipped over they lifted their eyes and shared a gaze. What book was this? How ancient? The monk opened it at a page marked with a faded purple ribbon. Shuna and Kamaesa stepped forward and each placed a gold ring on the book.

"_Konuguen _Father of spirits, Father of woman, Father of man, Father of all living things, bless these rings and let them be to Sheeta and Pazu symbols in your sight of love and faithfulness unending. Let them, by your grace, remind them of the vows and covenants they have made this day, through _Konuguen _our Father,_ Maehome. _

"Sheeta, place the ring on your groom's third finger, left hand."

Moving carefully and slowly she did so, Pazu raised his hand, palm upwards and felt the touch of her cool fingers on him. She slid the ring down, held it in place and spoke.

"Pazu, this ring I give you is a sign of our marriage. Everything I have is shared with you. All that I am is given to you. My body is yours, it honours you, in the sight of _Konuguen _our Father,_ Maehome."_

Her eyes never left his. He felt like he had in the barn, looking into those eyes he felt as though he was falling in and would never return. This time he hoped he never would.

"And now, Pazu, place the other ring on your bride's third finger, left hand."

As though in a dream he did so. He changed the words though, there was something he needed to add.

"Sheeta, this ring I give you is a sign of our marriage and my unending love. You have always led me and all of my days, since the day you came to me, have I followed you. With all of my heart, I thank you. Lead me for ever. Everything I have is shared with you. All that I am is given to you. My body is yours, it honours you, in the sight of _Konuguen _our Father,_ Maehome."_

He gave her a small bow, in return her eyes were wide and she inclined her head a little also. Ehuma gave Pazu a careful look but chose to say nothing.

"Before _Konuguen _you have sworn to each other solemn oaths and vows and covenants, you have given each other symbols of love and faithfulness. Sheeta and Pazu, you are now wife and husband."

For a moment nothing happened, there was just a gentle perfect silent connection between them.

"If you wish, you may kiss."

Pazu lifted his hands and reached for hers. She gave them to him and he stepped close to her. Wondering if she wanted this _here_ he lowered his head carefully. She tilted hers back, there was no smile now. He hesitated, their mouths an inch apart, and looked at her. It was she who took his hand and led him around the corner. When she spoke it was so softly only he heard.

"_Yau ulve om, _Pazu_. Kaesu om-e, puhlko-dhu." _

Needing no further encouragement he gently touched his lips to hers and felt again that beautiful softness he had dreamed about all week. She let go of his hands and put her arms around him and pressing them across his shoulders pulled him tighter to her. He lifted his hands to her waist, he didn't want to go too far right now. But even so, he could quite happily remain like this for the rest of the day.

The monk stood, patiently waiting. Reluctantly, they parted. He took the right hands of each of them and joined them.

"That which _Konuguen_ has made one, man shall not ever break. Now, please face me, and kneel and lift your hands palms upward."

Everybody in the hall knelt. The monk placed his two palms on their heads.

"May _Konuguen _Father of peace bless you and guard the door to your house, the door of your heart. May the road rise to meet you and the sun stand at your shoulder. May the wind be always at your back, and the rains fall softly upon your fields. May life itself befriend you. Each day, each night, each step of your journey may the guiding peace of the spirit of _Utomu_ be with you. May you have joy, the merciful riches of _Konuguen's _grace and may you both please him, in body and soul from the day that we have here today until the day of the end of your lives. _Maehome._

"May _Lucita_ bless your loins and your union. May she mercifully grant you the gift of sharing in her work of creation. _Lucita_ spirit of life and birth and all growing things, bless Sheeta and Pazu with the gift and care of children. May your children be also blessed. May your home be a place of love, security and truth. May you and your family have joy, the merciful riches of _Lucita's _grace and may you both please her, in body and soul from the day that we have here today until the day of the end of your lives. _Maehome._

"Please stand."

There followed another song and Sheeta and Pazu faced the room and held hands. Ehuma then invited them to sit in the two thrones and helpers moved the ceremonial table with its symbols a little to one side. All of the objects used in the ceremony would become theirs and Sheeta kept them on the windowsill of their bedroom from that day onward. One of the young girls removed Sheeta's veil and Pazu saw what a spectacular – well, the only possible word was _pile_ – had been made of her hair. It had regrown now, the damage Muska had done to it had grown out and Sheeta had had it put up in a smooth coiled construction laced through with red rose buds.

After that people came forward and greeted them. Wedding gifts were brought, gifts for their home, a large brass _telle _among them. There were hugs and kisses and slaps on the back, flower petals were thrown over them, music began and there was talking and they walked among the crowd sometimes together, sometimes separate.

Low round tables were brought out and the rows of cushions dispersed into groups around the tables. Then later there was feasting and dancing and things became, as they so often did in Gondoan style, rather animated.

As they sat in their thrones later in the day, Sheeta was talking with Amadea. She finished and turned to Pazu. He had finished sharing a joke with Asbela and was now sat quietly just watching her. Watching her sit, watching her talk, watching her breathing.

"Hello? May I help you?" she asked, smiling.  
"I'm just looking. Because I can."  
"That's my cue I think."

She leaned over the arm of her seat and he leaned toward her.

"Apart from at the end of the service I haven't kissed you yet, husband," she observed.  
"True," he answered, "and that was three hours ago, I hope you're not becoming forgetful in your old age Mrs. Pazu."  
"Well, I might be. Why don't you remind me how to kiss?"

So he did. She complained that she must be getting old because, she said, she hardly remembered how to do it. She asked him to kiss her several times just so that she could get the idea again. They sat, hands leaning on the armrests of their chairs, touching only with their mouths, their tongues and their breaths and Pazu had to show her everything, right from the basics. It got quite advanced after a while and he became a little uncomfortable and had to adjust how he sat.

"I think," he breathed heavily, "that you've got it now. I think that's all I can teach you. I think we should stop there."  
"Hm," she smiled, "it's all come back to me now. I remember something else. Come close. Now put out your tongue."

A little unsure, he did so. Her mouth closed over his tongue and she sucked it, like a sweet.

"Hm, my favourite," she said, grinning, "well, after strawberries that is."

She came against him once more and carried on. After a short while he began to sense something odd around them. It was quieter. He froze and she felt him become still. They looked around and their faces both turned the colour of her dress. The people nearest them had noticed what they were doing and had stopped talking to watch, others further back, noticing the quiet had stopped what _they_ were doing, and so on until their kiss had an audience of several hundred amused onlookers. When Pazu felt the silence and they both looked around the hall burst into spontaneous applause. After a few seconds of embarrassment Sheeta noticed that Pazu's tongue was still stuck out. Lifting a dainty finger she pushed it back out of sight, smiling girlishly at the applauding hall.

"I think," she said, "maybe you were right. We should stop."  
"I'd like to carry on later."  
"Yes," she smiled, "yes, I would like that too, husband."

--I--  
---o-o-oOo-o-o---  
I I

And later there was more food, and speeches and blessings and dancing. It became warm in the hall, Sheeta took Pazu's hand and led him out of the crowd of dancers.

"The _monor_ is too heavy, I need to take it off."  
"Are you allowed to?"  
"Of course! It's my wedding! Undo the catches."  
"Uh, is this proper?"  
"Yes, we are allowed to relax and enjoy ourselves."

He reached for where the lapels of the coat met at her waist. Behind the heavy cloth there were metal hooks and eyes, he unclipped them and opened the coat. She took the lapels in her hands and peeled it back and off her shoulders. He simply stood. And stared. Her shoulders, her arms and the upper part of her chest were completely bare. The red dress was tailored so well it fitted tightly around her waist and the front of it, being boned, swelled beautifully up and lifted her where she curved. It covered just enough. The upper part of her chest though was uncovered and because the bodice was so tight and held her so closely it pushed her bosom up and made it seem bigger.

Pazu could not believe what he was seeing. He'd never seen such an outrageous costume on a woman. At the Ravine all the women had worn sleeved dresses with high necks. Nothing at all was allowed to show. Not only did this dress shock him, he couldn't understand how it stayed on, what held it up. It looked like it should simply flop down and show everything. He went as red as he'd done when they'd been caught kissing.

"What is it Pazu?"  
"Y... Y… You…"  
"What?"  
"Y…"

She began to laugh, he was so funny. She frowned at him in a mock confused way. She had guessed this might be his reaction and had helped design the dress to have exactly this effect.

"Spit it out."  
"Your…"  
"Oh, come on, what?"

She rolled her eyes, feigning annoyance.

"H… How?"  
"Keep to the _your_, I would, you were nearly there."  
"Your…"  
"Good, go on,"

She was enjoying this, it was even better than she'd hoped.

"Your dress."  
"I am wearing a dress, yes."  
"Its."

He pointed at her front.

"Do you want to touch?"  
"No! But… how can you wear that?"  
"Shall I take it off?"  
"Sheeta! What's the matter with you?"  
"You are such a sweet, great, lovely _taeg _Pazu."  
"Why? Your dress."  
"What about it?"

She stuck her front out. His eyes bugged out nearly as much.

"It's rude!"  
"No it's not! It covers everything."  
"Your arms are naked."  
"They are naked yes. Does that make the dress rude?"  
"Uh… well… I'm not sure."  
"So, we're agreed bare arms aren't rude."  
"I suppose not. But your shoulders."  
"What's rude about my shoulders? Don't you like them?"

He looked. He had to admit they were beautiful shoulders, very white, very rounded, very smooth.

"Your shoulders aren't rude. It's just…"  
"So it's not my arms, and it's not my shoulders. Is it my back?"

Loving every moment she turned around. At the back there was nothing at all, the dress fitted snugly to her sides and fell away very low, well below her white shoulder blades, it came only a few inches above her waist. It was held closed here with a series of hooks and eyes. She heard a funny noise behind her, like someone choking. She looked at him over her shoulder. And smiled. She felt thoroughly wicked. His face was a picture, bright red, all eyes.

"Do I have a rude back?"  
"No! It's… it's a lovely back. But should you show so much? Girls in the Ravine don't ever show so much."  
"Look outside the hall."  
"Why?"  
"Is this the Ravine?"  
"No."  
"So is what girls wear in the Ravine relevant here?"

She continued to smile deliciously at him, so he would know she wasn't being deliberately awkward.

"No, but, there are limits."  
"When you men finished shearing the yaoko, what was I wearing then?"  
"Nothing."  
"Precisely. I'm completely covered up here."  
"But the shearing was different. Everybody was covered in…"  
"In what?"  
"Well, we were all dirty. Everyone was and we all went to bathe. It was part of the festival. Anyway, why am I even arguing with you? This is our wedding!"  
"You don't like my dress?"

She put on a big-eyed hurt look.

"Oh, no this is going all wrong," he put his hands in his hair, "It's a lovely dress, it's just that it shows so much."  
"Where? Its not my arms, not my shoulders, not my back. What is it showing?"  
"There!"

He indicated her front with his eyes.

"What?"  
"Come on, you know exactly what I mean."  
"My bosom?"  
"Yes."  
"My _décolletage_, I think it's called in Kingsbury?"  
"It is?"  
"It's covered. Mostly."  
"It's the _mostly_ that bothers me. The bits that aren't part of that _mostly_ are… showing."  
"Of course they're showing. It's a ball gown, sort of."  
"What's a ball gown?"  
"When there are big formal parties held in Penaerth and all sorts of people go, the men wear beautiful suits called evening suits and the ladies all wear ball gowns. Like this. There is a huge room where people dance and there might be two hundred ladies in there, all wearing this sort of dress."

Pazu's mind boggled. A room full of two hundred half naked ladies? He couldn't comprehend such a thing. He looked around. Quite a few people were looking at them but they seemed to be looking because they were the bride and groom, not because half her bosom was on display, that didn't seem to bother them at all.

"Pazu, I love you so much but you have such a lot to learn still. This style of dress is quite normal at special parties and events like this. Trust me. It's not rude at all. It's very fashionable."

She put her hands behind her back and gave him a smile, turning from the waist a little from side to side. He had to admit, dressed like this she was simply stunning.

"Well…" he scratched his head, "you do look beautiful. The red against your white skin."  
"Thank you. You're very sweet. And you look quite delicious too. Very smart. Easily the most gorgeous looking man here."  
"I am?"  
"Of course. You make me very proud. You make my chest puff up with pride."  
"Don't!" he exclaimed, "it might pop out!"

She giggled.

"Look, even if I take a big breath," she did so, her bosom swelling beautifully, "nothing shows."

Pazu's eyes boggled even more.

"I'm sorry if I seem silly. But from where I come from I think a policeman would rush up to you and cover you with a blanket."  
"Really?"  
"Hm, I've never seen a dress like it. And… I wanted to ask. The colours, why do you wear red and I wear cream?"  
"Shuna should have told you that."  
"He didn't. He said you would."  
"Oh, did he now? That rascal! I'll get him back later for that!"

Pazu put his head to one side and looked quizzically at her. She saw that she would have to explain.

"Um… I'll tell you later."  
"It's not rude is it?" he sounded suspicious again.  
"No, I wouldn't say it was rude," she paused, a finger to her lips, thinking, "Well, hm... not so much _rude_ as symbolic. But there is a time to tell you about such things."  
"When?"  
"Later," was all she would say, and she smiled. And secretly inside she thanked Shuna for giving her the opportunity to tell him.  
"And," she continued, now I have taken my _monor_ off, I'd like you to as well. Please."

She fluttered her eyelids.

"Well, you can see the buttons, woman, do your wifely duties and take it off."  
"Ooh, you are so yummy when you give orders. You'll have to give me lots of orders."

She wiggled a little in front of him in glee. She put out her arms and undid the three gold buttons, then went behind him and reaching around for the coat's lapels, eased it back off his shoulders and down his arms. She folded it over one arm and stood looking. Looking at his back. At his broad back and long reddish hair tumbling to below his shoulders, at the baggy, creamy, flowing silk_ hakkaemi _and his sword and belt. From her light hearted mood her mind tumbled towards… what? A different mood completely. Looking at his lovely shape, the silk shirt, she suddenly felt. Ready. Yes, _ready_ was the word. Ready to take him by the hand and lead him home. To bed. She leaned her forehead against his back. And in a small voice she spoke his name.

"Pazu?"

He didn't turn around, he turned only his head.

"Yes?"  
"You're beautiful. You look so good you make me feel…"  
"Like what?"  
"Like I wish this room was empty and we were alone."

He turned around. Her head was now against his skin where the _hakkaemi _hung open. She kissed him where his chest was smooth. She put the pads of three fingers there and lightly touched him.

"I want to be with you. I want to lie with you."  
"It's been a long time."  
"I know. Weeks and weeks."  
"Much too long. I've wanted to touch you for ages."  
"Tonight," she looked up at him, "will you?"  
"Yes. I want to."  
"But we must be part of our wedding now, we must talk to our guests."  
"I want to dance with you. Slowly. I'll ask the musicians to play some slow music."  
"In this rude dress? You'll have to touch my rude bare back," she teased.  
"I'll manage. I'm married now. If you tell me to I must obey."  
"Do you want to obey?"  
"I do."  
"Dance with me then."

--I--  
---o-o-oOo-o-o---  
I I

The day was almost over and it had grown dark. The dancing had slowed to a mellow level and the feasting was over. Councillor Kamaesa came over to where Pazu and Sheeta sat, talking with friends.

"Wife and husband, it is time for the _telle_. I can preside as host if you wish."  
"Please do," Sheeta replied.  
"Hm, last time I did this I took too much," Pazu was a little worried.  
"You'll be fine. This time just draw in a little. Not a little, little but some, yes? Don't take too much, but some. I want you to enjoy the effects tonight."  
"Alright."  
"And of course," added the Councillor, "once the two of you partake, you leave. Your attendants will take the two of you away."  
"Yes," Pazu replied. He was aware what would happen next.

The Councillor had the _telle_ brought into the centre of the hall beside the hearth. It was huge, twice the size of Thoma's and stood half the height of a man. It rested on a flat sledge lifted by four handles and carried by two men. Councillor Kamaesa blessed it and then had it brought up to where Sheeta and Pazu sat so that they could be first.

Sheeta went first, drawing in a large lungful as she had before. This time Pazu sucked less into his lungs but it was still enough to make him feel wonderfully light-headed and strange, floaty. His wife's face swam before him, moving like a reflection in a soap bubble and being surrounded by beautiful rainbows of colour.

They had their _monor_ put back on by their attendants and walked hand in hand to the hearth and around it to the far side. Here their friends gave them their final toasts and blessings.

"May you grow old on one pillow," Bhema raised his goblet.

"Love does not consist in gazing at each other, but in looking outward in the same direction," said Amadea.

"Remember Pazu," Tomboa said, "wives are young men's mistresses, their companions for middle age, and," he winked, "old men's nurses."

"Here is to matrimony," Shuna smiled at them, "the stormy sky for which no compass has yet been invented."

With music playing the couple walked arm in arm down a newly laid aisle scattered with petals to a doorway in the side of the hall opposite their thrones. More flower petals and dry _bomao_ beans were thrown over them as they walked. Outside, in the lane, their horses awaited. Both were given their gloves and boots to wear and helped onto their horses, Sheeta riding side saddle in her enormous skirt. The large group including all of Sheeta's and Pazu's attendants, rode back to their farm. In the lane outside the group stopped.

"Wife," Shuna turned in his saddle, "attend to the bride by the garden entrance, we shall take the groom to the yard door."  
"Yes, husband. Sheeta, come."

The ladies turned aside and went through the gate into the orchard. Shuna led Pazu into the yard where they dismounted. One of the men stabled Pazu's horse, then stood holding the others.

"Now Pazu, our last duty. You know what happens don't you?"  
"I do."

He was ready for this, his head still floated gently and his feet did not feel the floor. Everything around him seemed sharply focussed and wonderfully coloured, even the dull packed earth of the yard was a rich deep grey-brown that looked like smooth chocolate, and the yellow stones of the doorway had the appearance of sponge cake. It was all clear and rich and vibrant. His ears were picking up every sound. All of his senses seem to have been fine tuned.

The door stood open and he stepped in. It was gloomy inside but there was subdued lighting in the room, a lantern or two somewhere, he just couldn't see them. A red panel of cloth hung in front of him just inside the doorway. _Hm, that's new_, his drifting mind thought. Shuna and Bhema came in with him and did what he was expecting. They undressed him, they stripped him to his skin, leaving just the flowers in his hair.

"We leave you here, Pazu," Shuna whispered, "now it is all up to you. There are just the three of you in the house. Your bride, yourself and _Lucita_. She is with you, be fruitful."  
"_Yau taemo-dhu_ Shuna, you are a good friend."  
"Goodnight."

With a final pat on the shoulder, Shuna and the others withdrew. Pazu listened to their horses leave the yard and their chattering voices go past up the lane, back to the hall no doubt. He stood for a moment, feeling the cool night breeze on his back. Reaching behind him he closed the door. The entryway was scattered with flower petals and the room was heavy with the scent of them, and incense. He put an arm out and pushed aside the red hanging panel. He had expected the attendants to undress him and leave him, but this. This was odd. He hadn't expected this at all. In front of him was a space with cream and red cloth panels to either side and again in front of him. Where was the furniture? It was like a maze and gloomily lit.

He had come in by the front door and was naked. Therefore Sheeta somewhere, was near the kitchen door. And, he assumed, naked too. It would seem that this was a kind of game. They had to find each other. Curious, but filled with a keen anticipation, with a growing excitement, he stepped forward.

**  
**_- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - _

_25 - 30 April 2007 _

_For author notes about Chapter Sixty, please see my forum (click on my pen name)_


	62. Chapter 61 : Union Part Two : Body

**Chapter Sixty One – ****Union Part Two : Body****  
**

He looked up and was amazed. A group of villagers must have come here as soon as they had left this afternoon and working quickly, done this. The entire room had had a light timber framework constructed inside it. All the furniture must have been moved out. From the frames hung lengths of cloth, of different materials. Some were heavy woolens while others seemed to be semi-transparent silks, but they were all either blood-red or cream. Then he saw timber battens on the floor and realized that some of the cloth panels could not be pushed aside. He could move some but not others. It was a deliberate maze, a textile hall of mirrors.

He stood for a moment listening, not moving. His heightened senses could hear the wood in the hearth crackling and outside a light breeze ruffling the young leaves on the trees. But inside the room he could hear nothing more. He could sense her though. She was close by, in this room. She had left the kitchen and was very near. The strong flavour of the incense, flowers and the oil lamps, and his own perfumed body prevented him from picking up her special scent but he just knew she was close to him, somewhere beyond these cloth partitions.

Moving, gently moving. Hidden. But close to him. As unclothed as he was.

On his right was a faint glow and he pushed aside a cream panel to reveal a pottery oil lamp sitting on the floor in a wide flat earthenware dish. Covering it was a wire mesh cage – presumably for safety, to stop a cloth panel blowing over it.

"Pazu."

His name was called, softly.

"Sheeta? Where are you?"  
"Nearby. Find me."

She was definitely in the room. He pushed aside a red sheet and moved ahead.

"Pazu, do you want me?"

He stopped. Her voice carried that sweet, breathy edge he loved to hear which always made him feel _that _way.

"You know I do."  
"Come then. Come and get me."

There came a little giggle and suddenly he was aroused, he felt that urge in his groin he had felt when she had beckoned him to her before. He felt the blood flowing into himself but not flowing out again. He quickly became ready. He was surprised how quickly it happened. He felt his readiness that much more acutely. Was this the _telle_ affecting him? His fingertips seemed to flutter and tingle, and his head floated gently.

"Sheeta, be careful. I'll find you. You may not expect my approach."  
"Oh, I expect it. I want it. But will you decide when we meet… or will I…?"

There was movement nearby, the gentle sound of a bare foot on wood.

_Sheeta, you excite me._

_I… I want…_

_...to touch _

He moved on. He found a wall. He had come in the door and gone right. He needed to turn left twice towards the hearth. It sounded like she was behind him. He pushed ahead through several panels and past a second oil lamp before finding a door. He opened it. It was the kitchen. He still needed to go left. Another giggle came from that direction.

"_Taeg_ Pazu, not the kitchen my clumsy boy. I am… hm… I am _warm_."

He thought _warm_ might mean warmed by flames rather than any other kind of warmth although he couldn't be sure.

"I don't need the kitchen," he said, "even though I'm hungry, this hunger can't be satisfied there."  
"Eat at my table," she said, "please, husband… feast on me."

Pazu was so ready for her. Was this her game, to get him excited? If so, it was working. The man-part of him was hard and he tingled there, his need was becoming acute. He looked down at himself and was shocked to see that he was bigger than he could remember being before. Was this the _telle's_ doing as well? Another giggle came to him._  
_

"It is warm where I am. There is a _he-ayerth _here. In fact, there are two. They are both warm, Pazu. They are both… _hot_."

His breathing was faster, his heart beat faster too. She was so… different, so _teasing_. Was she affected by the _telle_ as well? He hoped so. He moved from the kitchen door to his left, pressing against panels that would not move.

"The two _he-ayerth_ are hot. One will burn you. The other, when you touch it, will burn me…"

He couldn't bear to be this excited. He moved again. Then he saw movement. A cream panel had the firelight behind it and he saw a shadow, a silhouette pass in front of the flickering firelight. It was slender and curved and moved quickly, daintily. He moved around the panel and found himself in a space before the fire, the panels were set away from the fire, he guessed again that this was for safety.

A panel opposite was moving and giggles receded behind it, growing fainter.

In this space now he could smell her. His _timsu_-sharpened sense of smell picked up the fragrant oils she had been wearing in the hall, but under that smell was something else, something unmistakably _her. _It was her scent, earthy and spicy and mingled in was something new, something in addition. It was even sharper and it reminded him of the air near Porthaven, down on the quay those salty smells of the sea and the kelp on the foreshore. There was a very rich female smell. This was her, he knew, and more than her it was how she smelled when she was _ready_. He remembered this wonderful smell from the cave, their first time. A crazy recollection came to him. He had smelled this on his fingers. He breathed deeply and his excitement sharply increased.

Turning away from the fire he went towards the stairs. Her voice came again, it had a leaner, more urgent, more throaty edge to it and it came from above him.

"Yes, husband. The stairs. I am here, come to me. Come to the bedroom… My _he-ayerth_ burns."

She sighed and he heard her feet padding up the wooden treads.

He pressed on, upwards, in pursuit.

"I am close. I am coming for you," he said, "Be ready."  
"I am ready, so ready."

Even up the staircase coloured panels had been hung like baffles. He pushed them aggressively aside and went up, his need was strong now. At the top he paused and looked at her painting of the summerbird, its wings spread, its beak open and the sunshine pouring from it, like a golden waterfall it fell on the land below.

_I am the summerbird, I will fall on her land, I want to wash her in golden fire…_

He turned along the upper landing, his hand on the banister. To one side was the door to her sewing room and the room he sat and worked at his book translations. Out of curiosity he turned the handle and opened it. It was dark but he could see strange shapes within. He took a step inside and found it full of furniture. From downstairs and from the bedroom, everything had been carefully stacked in here. Now he knew. As far as he could recall there was only one piece of furniture not here.

The bed.

"No, I am not in there, husband. Come here, come to bed…"

He reached the bedroom door. The scent of incense was stronger in here and there was firelight too, and the glow of oil lamps. It was a mystical place, dark, warm, inviting, like her.

"One day, one night, one moment…"

He went in and began to press through more coloured panels, he turned left then right, right again. Damn, their friends had been busy.

"…one step, one dream, one touch…"  
"Where are you?"  
"Touch me…"

As he advanced, her voice receded in front of him, always teasing. He was raging hard now, his whole body tingled and needed her touch, needed to touch.

He was the summerbird, his beak ready to open and pour out its life giving heat. She was the Green Girl, pretty, mischievous, sensual, receding ahead of him into the forest, drawing him in with her song.

"…one way, one girl, one boy, one voice…"  
"Sheeta?"  
"Pazu, my voice is here, I'm here."  
"I love you. I love what you do."  
"I haven't done anything yet. I haven't even _started_…"

Another giggle. Her laughter burned him.

"Stay. Don't keep moving. I want to find you."  
"Mmm, you will. You will find me. And have me. But not just yet… Not yet…"

He reached the bed. The heavy autumn coloured drapes that usually hung between canopy and base had also been removed and swirls of silky red and cream material were in their place, twisted together into entwined patterns, the cream mingling with the red. What was it with these two colours? On the bed were scattered armfuls of red petals. Tulip petals.

"…one kiss…"  
"Sheeta?"  
"Pazu, kiss me."

…

"…one moan, one love, one cry, one having…"  
"My love…"  
"Have me."  
"I want you. When I reach you, I will make you sing. The summerbird will make you sing."  
"Have me this day, make it our book of days. Take your pen and write in me. Write deeply, scar me with your writing…"

Pazu stopped, his heart was pounding, he felt as though if he touched himself or suddenly came upon her, he would explode. He went to the end of the bed, the fireplace glowed warm and there was apple wood burning there, he knew its fresh smell. There were only a few feet between the end of the bed and the hearth and it was clear of panels. A deep soft yaoko pelt rug lay before the fire. She must be on the far side, towards the window that gave the view over the orchard. That space was less than half the room, not large. He could find her now, there were surely not many places to hide.

He stepped around the bed, went right. A soft mellow chuckle came and some panels ahead of him moved. He darted forward and reached out but grasped only red silk. Pushing through he found the window, an oil lamp burning on the sill. The night air flowed in the open window and its breeze disturbed the panels. He turned again facing a sound behind him. He closed his eyes and imagined her, her delightful shape, flowing and curving and shaking as she laughed.

"Wife?"  
"Hm, yes husband?"  
"These colours? The red and cream. What are they?"  
"Hm, well now, they are you and I."  
"In what way?"  
"You are the cream."  
"I know, my wedding suit was cream."  
"No, husband, _you_ are the cream. It represents _you_."  
"How?"  
"Guess."

He tried to. He wracked his brains but couldn't make a connection. It had to be a Gondoan thing.

"Is it to do with Gondoa? Folklore?"  
"No, I don't think so. You are the same colour as all men, I think. So I am taught."  
"How do you mean?"  
"When you finish."

_what? what did that mean? when he finished what?_

"I don't understand."  
"I could tell you. But it is better if I show you. Or rather," she paused, "if you show me."

There was a hint of a smile in her voice, she was smiling as she spoke. Then, quite unexpectedly, she began to sing.

"_Huhn, ny'muhl la daloeh om-e_  
_La fohr u-la lirhmoth tu puhr sem_  
_Ah u-la ah la whinnoh_  
_Imroh la suerte o-fodh ehroth_

"_Fluh yau skur_  
_Myet yau stor_  
_Yau he-ayerth al om-e tuh_  
_La lirhum om-e_  
_Hewn gier yau-tal're_  
_Yau he-ayerth al om-e tuh_"

As she sang he moved slowly, as quietly as he could, back the way he had come, back towards the bed.

"_Brinnoh au-seth, ust for la_  
_Silyeth au la bruwynd yau lus neh'mher_  
_e-Shuurn yau-al coertens tau mor_  
_Ensur la urt-thome au herthme duh_

_"Yau brwyneh o-goh tau_  
_Uth'uru yau huernen tau caesen_  
_Uesen gu fuhr aeyond ueh'stunen_  
_Na maerteh dunstuch la_  
_Yau-teh huldhe om-e" _

He could see the glow of the fire on his right, feel it's warmth. Her singing came from his left. She was close and no longer moving. She was either at the end of the bed, or on it. He pulled aside a final red panel, saw the fire, and turned. She was there.

"_Fluh yau skur_  
_Myet yau stor_  
_Yau he-ayerth al om-e tuh_  
_La lirhum om-e_  
_Hewn gier yau-tal're_  
_Yau he-ayerth al om-e tuh" _

He stood and watched her sing. She was standing at the foot of the bed, leaning back against one of the bedposts, her bare white legs crossed at the ankles. Wound around her middle was a red banner of silk. It was wrapped tight against her and he saw her shape through it, the dome of her belly, the curves of her chest, even the two places she loved to feel the nip of his teeth where her body had stiffened and was ready. These places dimpled the thin material and invited him.

Her hair had changed again. Gone was the formal tight rose-trimmed construction she had worn earlier. In its place her hair was wild and loose. It was still piled up on her head but it was completely without control. It looked like the formal style she'd worn before had been quickly undone and shaken out and fingers had been scooped into it, ruffling it. The resulting storm had then been piled back up and quickly pinned in place with a few clips. Into this amazing red-brown _whirlwind_ of hair had been stuck several red tulips. Pazu knew what this meant; she had taught him about flowers and their meanings. The tulip stood for passion.

She finished her song and looked at him, eyelids half closed as though bored. He loved that look. It was his favourite expression. She smiled.

"Welcome, husband."

She looked down at him, below the waist.

"Sheeta, you are such a tease. Where did you learn to be like this?"  
"Are you enjoying it?"  
"I am, you're a different person."  
"I don't know what you learned this week but I was taught lots of interesting things. How to please you. How to do things. And like you, I'm a quick learner."

She smiled mischievously, still looking below his waist.

"I'm slower than you. I seem to be struggling with this red and cream thing."  
"The cream is difficult for me to show you now, that comes later. Would you like me to show you the red?"  
"Hm. And I want to see you."  
"Unwrap me then."

He stepped close and took hold of the end of the red silk. Pulling on the panel it began to unwind from her body. It was attached to the canopy of the bed, to the top of one of the posts, and since it was fixed, she had to turn as it unwound. She revolved slowly, twice, her arms lifted so that they wouldn't tangle. The material fell away. She leaned back against the post, her arms raised, hands gripping it above her head.

She wore her wedding band, and the red velvet choker. And that was all.

He stared.

What else could he do?

She was beautiful. When he'd told her, that evening in the farm, in her bath, that she was the most beautiful thing he'd ever seen, it had been the truth. She still was. If anything, like this, teasing and sensual, and ready, she was more beautiful still.

For a minute there was no sound in the room but the shifting and spitting of the apple logs and two people breathing.

Then he came to her. He could wait no longer, he could resist the siren call not a second more. He put his hands on her waist and their mouths touched. They kissed, they pressed together. They pushed, they strained. They entwined. It became not a kiss but a struggle, a battle, a deep, twisting, exciting, raging thing. There was wetness and tongues and lips and teeth and breathy gasping delight. His hardness crushed into her belly and her softness pressed flat against him. There were pounding heartbeats and fingers digging into hair and gripping tightly across shoulders. Names were gasped and moaned even though neither knew they were speaking. Holding her face in his palms he pushed her head back and kissed her neck, her jaw, her ear, her hair.

Gasping, they came apart.

"Uh, Sheeta… you're different," his breathing slowed  
"Mm, for you. Different for you. Tonight is your night, husband. I am taught this."  
"No, our night. We share it."  
"_Yau ulve om,_" she only smiled.

He noticed she was different, and not only in how she was behaving. There were several things different about her body, one of them was obvious, he had seen it. The others came to him as he looked. Under her arms where before there had been tufts of thick reddish hair now there was nothing. Under there now were two beautiful smooth white hollows.

"Your hair… here," he pointed.  
"Hm… a ritual I knew of but have never experienced. The wife is exposed for her husband, so he can see all of her. Do you like it?"

He put his fingers there, the skin was impossibly soft, like the skin of her lips and her chest. He wanted to… he had to.

Kiss.

_I want to_. _she is so beautiful there_

He moved his face there. She was deliciously fragrant with perfume. He kissed her side where her soft liquid breast became merely muscle, where the shape of her began. He moved his lips up and drank in the scent of that perfect hollow. She smelled wonderful, fragrant and yet her girl smell was strong here, he loved it. With his lips he worshipped her…

With her lips she moaned.

He put his face in turn to each sweet hollow and with his tongue bathed them. She was exotic and pure and enchanting and mysterious and wonderful. She was everything he needed. Kissing her here he pressed up against her and the hard part of him pushed against her stomach. Feeling his hot presence she moaned again, turning her head from side to side.

_I want…_

_him…_

_it…_

_oh, so soon, I want him… _

"You're beautiful. I love it."  
"I'm glad. I'm pleased that I please you. And, my legs."  
"I thought so. There too?"  
"Hm. Touch them."

He did. He ran his hands down her thighs to her knees. She had been covered in fine reddish-brown hairs here too, and now they were all gone. In their place was an exquisite expanse of smooth white beauty.

"How is it done?"  
"A fine stone, called _raseihren_. When split it forms a sharp edge and it can be scraped over soapy skin. Men use them too for shaving."  
"It doesn't hurt, or cut, like a steel blade?"  
"It can do if you use it wrong, but the women who shaved me were experts. I still have to learn properly."  
"The hair will re-grow, yes?"  
"Hm."  
"Can you do it again? Yourself? In future?"  
"You like it?"  
"I love it, it's lovely. You feel wonderful."  
"Of course then, I'll do it. If it pleases you, it pleases me."  
"And I've seen the other thing as well."  
"I thought you would," she smiled, that Green Girl smile was back, "I would like you to…"  
"Hm?"  
"Look. I'd like you to look at me. There."  
"A moment first. Before I do."

He kissed her again, this time slowly, so very slowly. That first kiss had been a violent summer shower, a deluge of the senses. This second kiss was like the dawn mist curling on the river and creeping gently out to cover the meadows with its cool softness. It was a deep kiss and again she did what she liked doing, she sucked on his tongue. They were stirred by it but it didn't become a desperate thing, merely slow and tender and beautiful. She drew back.

"Now, kneel. I want you to look upon me."

She uncrossed her ankles and shifted them a little apart. He knelt down.

he…

…looked.

At her.

She was. Different.

Before, she had displayed a thick soft mass of reddish hair. He remembered tangling his fingers through it, how silky and fine it was, unlike the strong wiry hair of her head. Now it was different. It was very short, trimmed right back to a fine downy covering the hair no more than a quarter inch long. Through the fine down he could see her flesh, see the rounded shape of her. It also covered less of her. It was shaped into a tidy triangle. Before her soft carpet had extended out to her legs, and even onto her legs. Now it covered a much smaller area. To the sides was exposed more smooth skin. He could see a clear clean crease where her upper inner leg met… where…

…he wanted…

to.

put.

…his fingers. He touched her at the side and felt her smoothness. She started in surprise at the contact. He moved his finger from her inner thigh to that fine crease where leg met the lowest fold of her stomach. He drew a finger down this delightful crease that she had never shown him before.

"Pazu. Underneath as well. Under me…"

He had never looked closely before so he couldn't see what the difference was but now, at the base of the downy triangle there was a pale pretty divided thing, a little like a mouth and there was moisture here and this was the place that delicious scent came from. He loved that salty sharp tang. Breathing it in, it filled his lungs and his mind, it excited him. There was no hair under here at all, but he wasn't certain if that was different from before or not.

"Open… yourself. Open… your legs."

He heard her breath jetting down her nostrils, a sigh held in. She obeyed his request and moved her feet a little further apart.

"No, further."

She put her head back and let out a low moan. Her arms were still raised, still gripping the post above her head. Staring up at the canopy of the bed she did as he asked and spread herself. Her heart was thumping inside her and her chest ached to be touched. But down below, in her burning centre was where her body screamed for contact. The image of him in the cave, above her, his arms, his beautiful muscles taut, his hardness in her, spearing her to the ground, making her go mad with pleasure…

_I want…_

_you._

_husband._

"You are so beautiful, so pretty."

She felt his breath on her and this made her moan again.

"Pazu… the red colour… is me. Do you wish to see it?"  
"Yes, where?"  
"Inside, Pazu. Inside me. I am red. The dress, the cloths, the flowers, my flesh. Inside."  
"I want to see."  
"Oh, yes. Yes, open me."

She let out a groan that came deep from her gut as she felt a touch. His fingers, so light, so gentle, so damn _good. _He used two or three of them, palm upwards as a scoop to touch under where she curved, where she opened, where she was dripping. She knew she was dripping, she could feel it, scalding her. She moaned again, louder as she felt him press in, opening her, spreading her.

The _timsu_ in the telle smoke had many properties. In men it caused changes in their bodies that made them swell more, some men more than others, the results were unpredictable. It also heightened the senses, made the sense of hearing, vision, taste and smell stronger, sharper. It also jangled the nerves and excited the sense of touch. In the skin or the fingers or the tongue this could cause a person to experience quite unusual sensations, a tingling, a buzzing. But in both men and women _timsu_ particularly excited those parts of the body that attracted a lovers touch. When a man and a woman lay together they might smoke _timsu_ leaves or drink _timsu_ tea beforehand simply in order to enjoy it more. Tonight, right now, this girl was already almost on the edge of reason and they had hardly done _anything_ yet. Her pleasure was great just from the teasing dance in the maze, from his kisses, from simply seeing him enjoy her so much. And now that he was touching her, she was distracted nearly to the point of madness.

Pazu pressed two fingers in, then the other hand, two fingers with that hand and with both hands he parted her and held her open. He knelt and simply looked. He had never seen anything like it. She was the most beautiful thing he'd known and this, _this_ amazing red flower was the prettiest part of her. He simply had no idea she was like this here. The ruffled pink edging parted to reveal a deep red soft interior and from it came a wonderful wetness and heat. This was where he had been in the cave. He had felt _this_ part of her gripping _that_ part of him but hadn't visualized the place he was embedded at all. The smell, her delicious salty scent filled his senses. It was wonderful, he couldn't get enough of it. He looked up. Above her softly curving stomach, above her breasts, her head was bent back and she was moaning.

"_Pazu… kaesu om-e. Nehme, puhlko nehme_…"(1)

_Kaesu_, he understood. He made to stand up, but as soon as she felt his hands move, his shoulders begin to shift she darted her hands quickly down and held him in place.

"_Na, ro-thome, ro-thome. Dhom-thome. Kaesu om-e, Pazu, ethu om-e._"(2)

Distracted by pleasure her mind reverted to her native tongue. Pazu understood the words, understood what she was saying. What he didn't understand was the idea of it. The simple concept of it. Kissing…here?

_here?_

_her centre? _

Kissing was for the mouth, the face, the neck, the hands even. But then again he had kissed her soft chest, hadn't he? And she had kissed his stomach. So… was there any place you couldn't kiss? Any place you shouldn't? He didn't know. This had never happened before. He received his answer by the gentle pressure of one of her hands on the back of his head.

"Pazu, please, my love. Kiss me there. Now."

…

"Eat at my table… feast on me."

Holding her pretty place open he moved his face forward. Her hand on the back of his head told her he was moving and she moaned in anticipation. In front of him she shifted position a little and pushed out toward him. It was clear what she wanted. Suddenly wanting it too, wanting to do this for her he closed the last small gap.

Sheeta moaned deeply from the gut and brought out from low in her lungs a growl of pleasure as his soft mouth touched her. And then, oh, yes, and then his tongue came out and she began to fly. She swooped and rose in the sky like a bird. This beautiful feeling she had so rarely before experienced, just twice before, she could feel it beginning again, already his touch was causing sharp spikes in her mind, spinning whirling bright daggers that bit and stabbed at her, cut deep into her belly and made her want to cry out.

He tasted her and loved it. The sharp bitter tang of her pleasure tasted like nothing else. It no longer reminded him of the coastal air, the sea shore, of bitter kelp or salt sea breezes. It had its own peculiar musky sourness that underneath was delicious too. The sharpness and sourness were combined into a sweet thing he simply wanted to taste. He pressed further in and then, remembering their very first time when he had touched her with his fingers, he knew there was a place she responded most. It was at the top. Moving his fingers he opened her wide. There was something there, like a little berry, like a nut it its shell. It was small and deep red and pretty and by pulling back the hood of skin above it he could expose it. He touched it with his tongue, lapping gently like a kitten laps milk. The instant he touched it he heard her groan again and her hand pressed harder at the back of his head.

Pleasure, she was feeling pleasure. And that pleased him.

He loved to please her, this was love. Something he willingly would give.

_everything I have is shared with you. all that I am is given to you. my body is yours, it honours you. _

Pazu honoured his wife. His fingers honoured her, his tongue honoured her and his heart did, his very soul did. She suddenly forced his face hard into her and cried out, he rasped his tongue against her more, faster and harder, flickering it rapidly like a flame. Her cry became a scream and she broke and shattered and tore apart and spewed out a stream of Gondoan words he had never heard before.

And she was honoured.

Sheeta, one hand gripping her husband's head against her centre, the other arm taut and holding herself upright against the bed post, bent her back over almost until her head touched the bed and she burst with pleasure, screaming and screaming, gasping, plunging and falling, her mind a writhing, whirling, leaping thing, her body spasming and burning.

And with his body, he honoured her. With his body, he worshipped her. With his body, he served her.

And with her body, she obeyed.

Pazu though, didn't stop. He kept on gently touching, now more slowly now a little faster, now reaching forward and grazing his teeth across this little thing, this tiny place that brought her so much pleasure. Sheeta came down from her screaming wild mountain and moaning, lifted her head. Her mind came back to where and who she was but suddenly, busy at her centre where she expected warmth and calm and a sweet cuddling peaceful feeling there darted something else, something light and flickering and birdlike. It ate at her, it teased, it built up, it made her draw breath and gasp in surprise. Whatever this thing was, it wasn't gone. It was still there. This sweeping powerful creature that had overcome her and shattered her within minutes hadn't finished with her. It was back. It had never gone away. It was still here working at her tiny centre, teasing her, beckoning her onward.

She leaned back on the wooden post and thought

_my…oh, no_

_again_

_it's happening again_

_how can it?_

_how can something so good_

_be…_

…_again?_

"Uhn, Pazu, sweet Pazu, beautiful husband, oh, yes! _YES!_ Again, please!"

The flickering of his tongue and the rasping of his teeth was bordering on agony, it was so good. She was so sensitive. Once had been fantastic, twice would be unbearable. But she couldn't stop it; she didn't want to stop it. If she had been burned by discomfort and writhing in pain, as long as his mouth and lips and tongue and teeth were there it would be enough, it would drive her on, over no matter what mindless hurt or agony it would take… if pleasure was at the end of that pain, she would endure the pain, she wanted the pain. The bitter soreness was part of the pleasure. Like running barefoot over sharp pebbles to get into the cool water of the lake on a searing hot day. To reach the pleasure you endured the torment.

And she could see, in the distance, the pleasure. It was coming again for her, it was coming to take her hand and lead her to distraction, to a place beyond reason with its beautiful maddening embrace. She wanted it, she reached for it. It was almost in reach. A little more torment, just a little. She could endure a little more.

If only…

she could…

…get there.

Long before her second peak the girl had become a useless limp thing. She lost her grip on the bedpost and slipped down, flopping backwards onto the bed. The boy who worked away at her centre, knowing by now her sounds and what they meant knew that these weak gasps and moans of pain were not cries of _stop_, were not calls of _enough_ and were not urgings of _no_ but were guttural demands, broken orders, they were her way of begging for more, pleading for it to go on, no matter how much it cost, no matter at all. Just _more_, please _more_…

And when it happened the second time her eyes rolled back, the whites showing and she simply dug down deep into her gut and drew out a shattering animal groan, a deep hoarse pitiful cry that said yes and no and thank you and enough and more and stop and please and love all in one furious surging convulsion. And it went on, and on, longer and more searing, both more beautiful and more agonizing than the first time.

Pazu lifted his head.

It was over.

He lay his forearms on his wife's thighs and stroked the palms of his hands gently over her stomach. Her body twitched and jerked as the last spasms faded. He dipped his head and kissed her pretty downy place and nuzzled his lips there contentedly, licking up the shining traces her pleasure had left.

_I worship you. ask me to do it again and I would. I am yours. make use of me. I exist to make you happy._

Sheeta returned from the place she had gone. She lifted an arm and ruffled the mane of his hair.

"Pazu. Beautiful Pazu. Thank you. Oh, thank you. Hold me."

He rose and climbed onto the bed beside her. He rolled her onto her side and held her against him, hugging her to him. For a while there was no sound but her ragged breathing that slowly eased. And then.

"Husband, I thank you. Husband, I love you. I love all of you, all that you do."  
"Do you want to sleep?"  
"No," she looked at him, alarmed, "of course not. Husband, I want you."

He looked into her eyes.

"Sheeta, you are such a lovely girl. Everything about you is pleasing."  
"I haven't even started pleasing you yet."  
"What would you like to do?"  
"I want to do that. To please you."  
"You already do."  
"No, I mean touch you. I want to touch. You. Where you are most beautiful."

--I--  
---o-o-oOo-o-o---  
I I

"A moment."

Pazu got up and put some more apple logs on the fire. His wife lay on the bed, on her side watching him.

"Husband, enough of your housekeeping, come here."

He crawled up the bed and lay with her. She reached for him and kissed him, she pulled the flowers from his hair and discarded them.

"Look at your hair, it's so long now. Don't you want it cut?"  
"I don't mind it like this, its practical in winter, warm."  
"It'll be hot in summer."  
"Then when you want to, cut it for me."  
"I will. When it gets hotter. I want to."

She grabbed a handful of it and pulled his head back so that she could kiss his neck and his throat and down to his chest. She pushed him onto his back and kneeling up beside him paused, looking. She ran her fingertips across his shoulder and breast, enjoying the firmness of him.

_he makes me feel_

_indecent._

_he is so…_

_wonderful._

_the hard feel of him…_

_I want…_

"Is there anything you would like?"  
"Of course," he grinned, "that's the silliest question."  
"What would you like, hm?"

She smiled and ran her fingers in a circle on him, lower, towards his stomach.

_let me have you, now…_

"Your hair, loosen it. I want to see."

That surprised her. She lifted an eyebrow but complied. She raised her arms and pulled the flowers out, throwing each tulip at him as it came free. As each landed on his face, he laughed, knocking them away. Sheeta reached up for the clips which held her hair and pulled them out. These she dropped on the floor by the bed, then she let her hands fall and shook her head. The great mass of colour fell and swept about her. It hung now halfway down her back, thick and dense and with the firelight behind it, glowing like a promise.

"Now, what else?"

He put a finger to his lips, a _shush_, sign. He lay there, just looking. Her hair was lovely.

"Please, lift it again, hold it up."

Happy to please him, she did so. He needed to touch. He knelt up and facing her reached out his hands. He touched her front, gently stroking, cupping, lifting, his fingers and thumbs caressed her. She knelt, happy, but wanting to touch him. She out a long breathy sigh, a moan.

_he makes me begin so easily._

"Hm, not fair. My turn. I want to play."  
"In a moment. I need to…"

He bent his head and kissed the two little places where her body had stiffened. He had thought these to be his favourite parts of her, after her eyes of course, and her mouth. But tonight he had discovered an even more wonderful place. But here, here he could make her respond as well, by slow movements of pinching fingers, squeezing hands and nipping teeth she again began to make those gasping urgent sounds he so much loved to draw from her.

"Husband, please, my turn."

She sounded a little put out, as though this wasn't fair. He released her soft chest and lifted his hands to her face, cupping it and kissing her mouth.

"Alright, your turn."  
"What would you like?"  
"What did you learn this week?"  
"Hm, I'll show you."

Where he had knelt up, one of his knees was between hers. She wiggled forward so that his knee pressed between, and into her, then she reached between his legs and lifted him.

"You are bigger than you were before, you know."  
"I thought so. Did the _telle_ cause that?"  
"Hm. How does this feel?"

He watched her face, he felt his hot soul held and touched and her nimble fingers moved around him and against him and gripped and cupped. His breathing quickened.

"Don't look down. Don't look at my hands. Look at me. Look at my eyes."

He did so. Her face was calm and kind and open and loving. Down there where her hands worked he began to respond, the sensations began to build, he felt his nerves tingling and dancing. She seemed to grip him hard and pull back part of him and he felt exposed, then the most wonderful sensations filled him, her fingers were on him, right at the every end of him gently scooping under, rubbing over and pressing across the end of him. His breathing rasped and he found himself unable to stifle a moan.

"Oh, Sheeta…"  
"Is that good?"  
"Hm, yes… you are good."  
"Pazu, in the darkness of the night…"  
"Urh…nnnn… yes…"  
"…you will know me…"  
"Yes."  
"…by the light of my passion."  
"I do… I…"  
"Can you feel my passion?"  
"Yes!"  
"I do this through love. I love you. Doing this pleases me."  
"Mmmm…"  
"Do I please you?"  
"Sheeta! You know you do."  
"Do you want more?"  
"Uh, yes!"  
"How much more?"  
"I want… I want you… please…"  
"Do you want to be inside me?"  
"Yes."  
"Do you want to open me?"  
"Oh, yes."  
"Do you want to _stretch_ me?"  
"Hmmm…"

Her fingers swept around and around where he was wet and most sensitive. He could feel the end approaching and he wanted to be in her. He wanted to give himself to her. It had to be this way, finishing like this was wrong, this part of him was hers, not his.

"Do you want to spear me, plant in me, be my plough?"  
"Sheeta, now. Yes, now."  
"Pazu, overcome me."  
"Am I enough?"  
"Your eyes, your hands, your tongue, your voice, your imagination; they are enough."  
"I want to."  
"Be enough for me. Be my conqueror, be my prince."

He could bear it no more, he pushed her backwards onto the silken red and cream sea. She folded down on her back, smiling, her hair a whole world around her, spilling off the bed. He knelt astride her, her legs, widely parted, folded back, begged him to enter. Her arms lifted, welcoming him, embracing him. The summerbird rose in the sky, its wings spread, its beak open and the sunshine pouring from it, like a golden waterfall it fell on the land below. It both fed and nourished, it took and gave, it filled and emptied. It loved.

"Pazu! Yes! _Ur he-ayerth mo._"

He did, he ruled her hearth, he knew her body, he made love to her and she to him. This was not a thing two people did to each other, this was one thing two people created. This was not an urgent hot thing, the thing that desperate people crave, not a thing that happens without love, a crude base thing merely of sweat and muscles and pleasure. This was nothing at all to do with what those men in the Red Cow Inn talked of. This was _love_; it became a thing of worship itself, a thing of truth and joy. Obedience and submission, caring and worship.

This man and this woman had begun the day as two separate reasons. They ended it as one, not joined together where his blade ploughed her soil but joined as two lives join, by oaths and vows, by commitment and love, by spirit and devotion, two imperfect souls were brought closer to perfection by sharing a truth in which they both believed and, much more important, in which they were both prepared to invest. Each brought their fears and doubts and worries to this place, this room, this loving union. And from the imperfect contribution of each was born a new thing. Young yet, and uncertain it was but over the months and years like a child it would grow strong and confident and assured. And this thing, this marriage was born here, this night, in this bed among these cries and kisses and moans and loving touches. It was born of this communion, this urgent beautiful joining. Now she would cry out and now he would. Now he would be atop her and spreading her and then she would be astride him, writhing on him. Now she would be on her knees near the fire, her forearms and face to the floor, her cries pressed against the rug and he would be kneeling behind her and repeatedly entering her. But these details mattered little.

What mattered was them. What mattered was love. Love was there in that room. Love was there at the very beginning, the very root of that marriage. Many things came and went over many years but love stayed throughout. It never went, it never died, it never took second place to anything, and it never grew stale.

It mattered the most, and it remained until the end, the brightest strongest thing.

--I--  
---o-o-oOo-o-o---  
I I

It was late in the night. And silent. How late Sheeta did not know. Dawn would come at about six. She turned her befuddled head, the night air drifted in the window. Was the sky paling yet? It seemed to be. Five o'clock perhaps? She lay across the bed on her back, her wonderful husband was across her, his head on her chest, his lips nuzzling at her breast like a babe.

They had not slept. They had celebrated their marriage again and again. She couldn't remember how many times he had made her lose control. No idea. Six times? Eight? More? She had never known it could be like this. And he had been beautiful, how could he not be worn out? She didn't know. Her mind whirled as she remembered the night; his fingers, his tongue, his delicious rasping, nipping teeth, his spear. At one point he had made her kneel up, had taken her fingers and put them on herself and made her touch herself. With words and touches elsewhere he had encouraged her and she'd sent herself gasping and squealing beyond the point where she could stop. And as she went he had kissed her, his tongue in her mouth as she cried out. She was truly blessed with a husband who could be like this. Beautiful to behold, strong, skilled with his hands, willing to learn farming, friendly of disposition and exhaustingly virile. She reached down and stroked his sweet face. He was like this, as though a child. Yet an hour ago he had been a demanding master. Maybe this was why the stone had taken her to him? Not because he was the forgotten prince, but because he was simply beautiful in every way. The stone had thought he was the best person for her. It had been right.

"Are you asleep, love?"  
"Nnn…"  
"I forgot."  
"Hm…wha?"  
"To tell you."  
"Tell me what?"

He turned his head and let her puffy wet nipple slide from his lips.

"About the cream."  
"Hm. I think. I understand."  
"You do?"  
"Hm. _Taeg_ Pazu isn't all _taeg_."

She smiled at him, stroked his tangled damp hair.

"You're not even a little stupid."  
"_Taeg_ Pazu is, you said so."  
"I was just teasing."  
"All those times you said it?"  
"Uh-huh, all those times," she reassured him, "all teasing. You're not really stupid."  
"Hm. _Taemo_. Anyway, I've seen enough of it tonight."  
"The cream?"  
"Yes, the cream. It's what comes out of me isn't it?"  
"You're right, it is. In that fluid is your seed. The thing you plant in me that makes my egg into a child, your cream is one third of life being made."  
"A third?"  
"My egg is another third. That really is the red symbol. My blood. Each month when the egg is renewed the blood flow shows I can create life. I showed you the red inside me, it's the closest thing to the blood I could show."  
"And the other third?"  
"_Lucita_ of course, although it's wrong to say she is only a third of it. She's all of it really because she is your seed and my egg as well, we just help her."  
"Is she here tonight?"  
"You know, I'm not sure. I think she is with us, watching over us but tonight I don't think she has created life."  
"Oh."  
"Hm. It's just a feeling I have. I don't know why. You know, she was in the cave with us."  
"She was?"

Pazu pushed himself up on his elbow and looked at her carefully. Her face was partly turned away and lit by the dying embers of the fire. Across it her gorgeous hair rained down.

"Yes, definitely she was there. And I felt her make a decision not to create life that night. It's not for us to know why, she has her reasons."  
"So you don't know why tonight either?"  
"No. We can't presume to know her plan. Although…." Sheeta thought carefully, "You know, what I hope for is that it's her wish that you and I should enjoy each other a little more, before a child is made."  
"You do want a child don't you?"  
"Yes, of course! And you?"  
"Yes. You know. Something funny happened in the hall," Pazu recalled that odd meeting, "Councillor Kamaesa came to me and said something odd."  
"What?"  
"_The child she will have blonde hair_, is what she said. Just that. She was peculiar too. Her eyes, not like I've seen her before. You know her, how sharp she is, those beady old eyes, how they know everything?"  
"Hm."  
"Well in the hall she looked very strange, her eyes were clouded and unfocussed. And she walked up to me and said only those words."  
"But blonde? With us two? How?"  
"I don't know, it's just what she said."

She turned to look at him.

"That is strange."  
"Let's just see."

He got off the bed and stoked the fire, the room flickered and danced with its glow. He raked the ashes and added more logs. The small hours were the coldest part of the night. Sheeta rolled onto her front and leaning on her elbows, watched him, watched his shoulders, his hips, his fine legs, his muscular rear. He turned. He saw her back, white and smooth and slender and dipping down to her tiny waist, and beyond that her white beautiful swelling bottom, her lovely legs.

_again. how can I want her… _

…again?

_am I not exhausted?_

_no... _

_…she excites me._

He had caught her looking.

"What?" he asked

She spoke no answer, her smile was her answer.

"Come here wife."

She uncoiled herself from the tangled damp bed sheets and feeling a little unsteady, went to him. Near the warmth of the fire he held her, hugged her and stroked her back.

"How do you feel?" he asked.  
"Loved," the girl replied, "hm, and sore. And, hm… wet. Messy," she smiled up at him.  
"Tired?"  
"No, not really. Why?"  
"Touch me."  
"What? _Again?_"  
"Hm."  
"Pazu! You must be exhausted! How can you want me again?"  
"You send me, with emotions I've never before felt, you send me to places. I just…want you… more."

His hand came up, holding her soft tender front. His fingers stroked. By the fire, in the cool pre-dawn darkness the girl and the boy held each other, and kissed and touched.

Taking her hand he led her to the window. Standing behind her he pushed her neck and bent her over. Using her forearms she supported herself on the windowsill. The boy pressed up against her, behind her.

"What do you see?" he asked her.  
"The mountain," she answered, "the lake, the woodland. Our fields, our shed, our yard."  
"Our farm, hm?"  
"Yes."

She squealed as he pulled her open, forcing her legs apart, he entered her. She was wet and he came into her hard and deep. She growled and moaned. How could he need more? He was as big as the first time.

"Where have we been?" he asked  
"Uh, I don't understand…mmm…"  
"What has happened?"  
"To us?"  
"Hm."  
"Oh. Uh, Pazu. I can't think. Everything."  
"Our journey?"  
"Yes, oh… yes, our journey…"  
"Is it over?"

Now she understood. She looked down the river and over the forest, pale as the first fingers of dawn caressed the trees. Beyond it were the southern hills and beyond those an inn on the high moorland. Beyond _that_ was Restormel and another forest and a ruined flying city, a place in a cave where some people had taken shelter from the first snows of winter, a crashed air-machine. And south again was a war torn mangled land, a grass airstrip, hills, a farm with a tin bath, a ruined barn where unknown travelers had lit a fire to shelter from a storm. Where they had kissed.

Then – oh – he moved inside her and made it hard to think – then a muddy debris strewn country, a railway line, a deep mineshaft and the rusting junk of a glider at the bottom. And under the sea the wreck of a giant airship and the ruins of Laputa's great weapon. And further still, Dola and her boys somewhere there and Tepis Fortress and then The Ravine, Pazu's cabin, the doves, his friends.

And scattered through it all were the traces of their passing, this boy and this girl, these shallow marks they had left on the land, on people, on places. Time would come and wipe away those marks, time would soon forget them.

Their journey…

"Yes. Pazu, yes. Mmm, it's over. Our journey is ended. I'm with you. We are here."

He pushed into her again and she cried out and gripped him. She was sore but wanted more, he could make her want more even when she burned with too much use, even when she craved sleep.

"Wrong. It's not over."  
"Uhn… oh…"  
"It's just starting."  
"?"  
"The road doesn't end here Sheeta. It starts. Our story begins here."  
"Pazu… please, don't tease me. Harder…"  
"Our journey, uh."  
"Yes…"  
"My life is your life. Live your life with me."  
"Yes."  
"Live my life. Live me."  
"Oh yes."

His movements became faster, deeper. She began to push back against him.

"The journey hasn't even begun, my love."  
"Oh, no, Pazu, no."  
"Today, it begins. Come…"  
"Mmm."  
"Come with me, on this journey."  
"Mmm, my life."  
"Yes?"  
"Is yours."  
"Yes, wife."  
"Take my life. Take me. Uh, take me Pazu, take all of me. Please!"

He did. They took each other. Clothed only in love they went. This was not the end but the beginning, they journeyed together, as lovers do, not caring about the worries and troubles ahead, not considering the way life would lead them, nor the steep hills their path might follow. Like lovers do they cared not for such as that. They cared, as lovers do, as newly married husband and wife do, only for one thing.

Each other.

--I--  
---o-o-oOo-o-o---  
I I

Dawn, she came, stealing gently over the land, with hints of colour and a sweet promise of another day in which life would go on, she came. She touched a mountain with her virgin hand, she caressed a dark lake, and pausing for a moment her lips kissed a farmhouse and the two lovers who lay there. On a bed they were tangled as one, entwined and finished, poured out into each other they were, in perfect repose the dawn found them, still without sleep.

"Thank you, you were beautiful. Thank you, thank you. Ever since the day you caught me as I fell you have been a wonder to me."

Said the girl.

"It wasn't me who caught you, it was your stone that sent you. You should thank your stone."

Answered the boy.

She looked at him sleepily, he had no idea had he? What he had done for her, everything he had done, her life he had changed, and yet, here he was, still denying his role in her days. He still gave credit to her stone.

"Well, thank you stone. Thank you for bringing me to my prince. And thank you, prince, for the rest. You know, that other stuff… just a few small things, hm?"  
"Sheeta, thank you for marrying me. Be with me always."  
"Goodnight Pazu, my love, sweet dreams…"

**  
**- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

_30 April – 1 May 2007_

_(1) The only new word I introduce here is "nehme" or "now". But the whole sentence reads: "Pazu, kiss me. Now, please now."_

_(2) Again I introduce only one new word here which is "dhom" meaning "down". So this whole sentence reads "No, stop there, stop there. Down there. Kiss me, Pazu, lick me._"

_For author notes about Chapter Sixty One, please see my forum (click on my pen name)_


	63. Chapter 62 : Gifts

**Chapter Sixty Two – Gifts  
**

The group of people got no response to their knocking and stepped cautiously in. Downstairs all was undisturbed; the oil lamps had burned out and the fire was dull and low, merely embers. Despite the late hour it was clear that no-one had been down here this morning. Amadea and her neighbour went up the stairs. The upper landing retained its cloth divides and the small room was full of furniture just as the men had left it.

"Are they still asleep?"  
"It is past ten, surely not?"

Amadea peeped in the bedroom but of course could see nothing but the cream and red baffles. She listened carefully. Nothing. Not a sound.

"Hello? Sheeta? Hello?"

No response.

"Hello?"

She turned to her companion.

"Tell the men to come up. They can clear the parlour and the stair and landing and at least put the furniture back in the downstairs rooms. But make sure they are as quiet as they can."  
"Are they still sleeping?"  
"They must be," Amadea was puzzled, "unless they rose early and went out."  
"Well," her companion chuckled, "Perhaps they didn't get much sleep."  
"Now shush you, let us have no talk like that. I will close the door and leave them in peace. Come, we can lay out a cold breakfast for them."

--I--  
---o-o-oOo-o-o---  
I I

She opened her eyes and he was there. For a few moments she merely lay and let the delightful recollection of the previous day and night fall over her. She was married, a married woman.

_married to him_

_him_

_Pazu_

The simple thought of it filled her with happiness. She had wanted this day for a long time, had known it was right for her, for far longer than he. It had been a long slow journey, gradually getting him to come with her, to see what it was that she was showing him, what she wanted. Leading him around that corner down a new path. But they had got there in the end, he had got there, despite it all, all the troubles, all the dangers, all the worry. She and he were. Home.

She lay for a while, her arms around him, hugging, holding. Then she kissed his neck and sat up. It was full day, but what time she had no idea. It could even be afternoon for all her senses would tell her. The fire had gone out. She wrapped part of the red bedding around herself and went to the window. A twinge low down told her to move slowly, carefully. _hm, sore._

The scene outside told her morning, the direction and colour of the light was enough, she'd looked on this view enough mornings to place the hour at past eleven and that was shocking enough. Tucking the end corner of the silk sheet in under one armpit so it would not unwind, she found her way out of the room.

She stopped and stared at the landing. The coloured screens were all gone, the wooden framework too. She went downstairs and in the parlour the long table had been placed in the centre of the room, the easy chairs to one side. A fire crackled cheerfully in the hearth and a meal was prepared. Their friends had come back this morning and done this. She smiled in thanks to them. On the table were bread, butter, preserves, pickles, _bomao_ cake, cereal, cordial. She poured herself a goblet of apple juice and went to the kitchen. All was normal, the fire was clean and fresh and well built up. She opened the back door and stood on the flagstones, drawing in a deep breath. She went over to one corner where the sun fell and let it touch her. She sipped her drink. She closed her eyes. Spring was definitely here now, it was warm.

She felt, understandably, a little grubby and crispy and her hair was a complete mess, tangled in a stubborn mat down her back. A bath. That was what she needed. He could sleep while she bathed then later they would share breakfast. She filled the large copper kettle from the kitchen pump and hung it over the fire, then opened the scullery door to get the tin bath down.

She stopped in the doorway. What? Where was her scullery? She stood, stunned by the sight she found there, her mouth open. Had he done this?

"Pazu!"

She turned and ran back up the stairs, into the bedroom and got her self hopelessly tangled up in the hanging cloths there.

"Pazu! Wake up!"

Her silk covering unwound and came off but she found the bed, falling onto it and shaking his shoulder.

"Wake up! Come on, _taeg_ Pazu. Why didn't you tell me?"  
"Hnnn.."  
"Come on you, you've had enough sleep. _Now. Wake. Up_."

She pulled at his shoulder with each syllable.

"Again?"  
"What?"  
"Too tired. Not again…"  
"Oh, for heaven's sake! Put those thoughts away and wake up. Show me this."  
"What?"

He opened his eyes. She was there, he registered that much. She had nothing on and she wanted something, this was all that made sense so far, and he was in no condition to provide what he thought she wanted.

"Up, come on, husband! Get up!"  
"Nnnn… sleepy."

She looked around, wondering how to get him to waken. Then, an idea. She put her mouth to his and kissed him.

"Hmm… no more. Enough."

He wriggled away from her grasp.

"No, come here, I want it again."

He sat up. Suddenly.

"I said no, what is the matter with you? Haven't you had enough? What time is it?"  
"Nearly summer, now get up. You have something to show me I think."  
"I do?"  
"Downstairs. The scullery."  
"Scullery?"  
"Yes! My scullery! Where is it?"  
"What do you mean _where is it?_"  
"I don't have one anymore."

She wasn't making sense. Hadn't he been working there this last week, changing it?

"Yes you do."  
"Don't."  
"Do."  
"Show me then."  
"What is the matter with you? Here, I'll show you."

He rolled off the bed, took her hand and walked straight into two heavy cream panels, tripping and falling headlong. Timber crunched and part of the framework collapsed onto them. She squealed as she was pulled down with him.

"Oi!"  
"Uhn. What?"

He rolled over and tried to rub his shoulder but was too entangled, her weight was on him and his brain was too furry to deal with all this. He felt her warm hands at his side, unwinding the cloth from under him.

"No, clumsy boy, not _that_ way," she giggled, "We have to go _around_ the cloths. Don't you remember?"  
"Uh, sort of. I think."

He did, almost. Remember. He remembered lots of things. But he was sure some things hadn't come back to him yet. For a minute he lay on his back and let her hands touch him and untangle him while those things came back, some of them anyway. He certainly remembered the wedding. Which was good. If he forgot that he thought she might have a few things to say about it. He remembered she had worn the most wonderful dress. Or almost worn it. He was still convinced she'd forgotten to put the top half on. And smoking the _telle_. Yes, he definitely remembered _that_. And after that, they had come here, Shuna and the brothers and him. Flying on horseback. Over the houses. And then. Hm, yes, and then. He remembered all of that now. Well, parts of it. Parts of it were so stunningly vivid in his mind he thought he'd never forget them. He lazily put a finger to his lips recalling a certain taste. But eventually, later in the night things began to lose definition and events and sounds and smells merged into one long. What? One long _happening_. Yes, that word would do. A _happening_. It had been a good _happening_ and it had gone on a long time. He recalled sharp peaks and events in it, and he particularly and clearly remembered the important things they'd talked about as dawn was breaking.

It was no good, she wouldn't leave him alone. She wanted something and he wasn't sure if it was something he could provide, not in his condition, anyway.

"Come on, up with you. I want an explanation."

He looked at his left hand. A gold ring was on the third finger.

"Sheeta, look."

She looked at it.

"Yes, I've got one just like it, now come downstairs."  
"No, I mean. Look. I… I love you. It means I love you."

She looked again. Then at him.

"Forever," he added.

And suddenly she loved him too. Despite him being a sleepy, dopey, useless lump, she loved him.

"Lover," she said, "kiss me."  
"Mmm…"

A few minutes later.

"Now, come. I want to show you…"  
"We've got nothing on."  
"That doesn't matter, quickly."

--I--  
---o-o-oOo-o-o---  
I I

"You know, you're right," he said, "Someone came and stole your scullery."  
"What are you saying?"  
"We need to tell Councillor Kamaesa, call a Gathering. Have a meeting. Jump up and down and shout a lot."

She looked at him, frowning.

"Don't you think we should?" he looked at her  
"Are you alright?"  
"No, I'm not. There's a scullery thief on the loose. He needs to be stopped!"  
"Pazu you can't steal a room."  
"Someone has. Look!"

He walked in, pointing at things.

"There used to be some old wooden shelves here, they've been stolen. The old washtub – well, where's that gone? And even the chimney breast is changed. That was _there_, and now it's _here_. And what's all this – this metal cylinder? And this low raised area with a bath in it? Hm? Where did all that come from? That's what I want to know. And tiling. The tiling is all new. And look, someone's put a water pump in here as well. Sheeta there are some very strange things going on. Our house might even be haunted."

Sheeta leaned against the door frame and crossed her arms over her chest.

"Have you quite finished?"

He stopped, frozen in the act of pointing at a pipe that ran from the new boiler to the built in bath.

"Well," he frowned, "I didn't actually get time to completely finish. I did miss a bit of tiling. _Here_. Um. And _here_."

She stared at him, enthusiastic, pointing, naked and lovely. She smiled. How could she not?

"It's a beautiful room, Pazu. Thank you very much."

He dropped his hands.

"You like it? Someone even stole part of the wall and put a window in instead. I hope you don't mind?"  
"Mind? How can I mind? It's simply lovely. You did this all last week?"  
"Yes."  
"No wonder I learned more about what to do in the bedroom than you did, you spent your time redecorating."  
"Uh, sorry. Next time we marry I promise I'll listen to Shuna better."  
"No need. I learned enough for both of us. I'll lead, you follow, does that sound like it'll work?"  
"I don't know," he scratched his head, "Sounds a bit complicated to me," he grinned at her like an idiot, "I've a better idea. How about you bathe and I scrub your back?"  
"Now," she smiled back, unfolding her arms and walking to him, and slipping her arms round his neck, "_that_ sounds like a plan."  
"This is my wedding present to you."  
"Pazu. Thank you. It's beautiful."  
"I was inspired by that lovely bath house they had in the inn in Restormel."  
"So that's why it seemed familiar. I wondered where I'd seen this before."  
"Look, let me show you…"

Pazu had built a raised area at one side of the room, opposite the door. It had a planed and varnished timber benchwork top and earthenware enameled tiles along the front edge and also part way up the wall behind. Set into the benchwork was a tin bath, a big one. There were even two tiled steps so you could climb up onto the wooden bench and step down into the bath. Pazu had cut a drain hole at one end and laid a soil pipe out under the yard to the field where it drained into a sump he'd dug. The old chimney breast beside the grain tower wall had been blanked off and he'd opened up a new breast that backed onto the main chimney of the parlour, adding a flue and a raised area where the washtub could go, to the left of the door as you came in. On the other side of the new chimney was a steel boiler on legs heated by exhaust gases from the fire. A water pipe led from the boiler to the bath, closed by a hand valve.

He had laid new clean floorboards, waxed and polished and had plastered the whole of the room above the enameled tiles with white distemper, making the room seem big and bright. A slatted wooden blind could be dropped over the window so people in the yard couldn't see in.

"And," he gleefully demonstrated, "best of all. I tapped an artesian well under the yard. I didn't know there was one. You know that funny smelling medicine woman who lives near the top of the village?"

Sheeta giggled.

"You mean Mother Whindera? The most respected medicine lady in the county?"  
"That's the one. The nutty one with the nose hair, well she came and had these two sticks in her hands and wandered around our yard for ten minutes and told me we had an artesian well near the corner of the yaoko shed."

Sheeta was still laughing, one hand over her mouth. _nose hair_

"So I ran a collection pipe to it and fitted a pressure valve. And," he stepped back and with a flourish turned a spigot. Clean clear water began to flow from a pipe into a bucket.  
"How's it doing that?" Sheeta asked.  
"It's an artesian well. Water trapped under ground in the rocks under pressure. So you don't need to pump it out. It's sitting there in this pipe all the time. You just turn the valve and out it comes. No pumping, no priming, nothing. And a second pipe runs to the boiler. So for a bath you just open this valve for about five minutes to fill the boiler, light a good hot fire for about thirty minutes and there you have it. Turn that valve and steaming hot bathwater!"  
"You did all this?"  
"Hm," he beamed at her.  
"In a week?"  
"Well, I had a few other things to do with Shuna and the men. That was a bit annoying. Some girl insisted on marrying me so I got distracted. I think in all I had about three days to do this, and a couple of evenings."  
"You did this? In three days?"  
"Yes."  
"Alone?"  
"It's alright isn't it?"  
"Pazu! Of course it's alright. It's… it's wonderful! It's the best thing anyone's ever given me."  
"That's good. Now, about that bath. I'll just fill the boiler and get a fire going."  
"Come here."

She held out her hand. He took it.

She led him back through the kitchen, through the parlour (he grabbed a strip of _poto_ bread as he went by – he was starving) and to the front door. She opened it and stepped out.

"Wait. We're not wearing anything," he spat _poto_ crumbs over her chest, "oh, sorry."

He reached out and brushed them off. She merely watched.

"When you've quite finished…"  
"Missed one. Sorry," he touched her again, "There. Ah, no. Um, one more."

He reached out again, brushing her gently, tenderly.

"Pazu! This is not the time!"  
"Sorry. I could have sworn that was a crumb."  
"This is our yard. High walls. Closed gate. So no one will see us. And it's a lovely warm sunny day. Come on."

She led him by the hand to the yaoko shed. At the house end of it was a dividing wall making a stable and the stall where she kept Immy. She took him in. Immy was there, and the chestnut gelding Khuaema had lent Pazu yesterday. They stood in silence a moment.

"Khuaema left the horse," he voiced what was completely obvious.  
"He did leave the horse, yes," she answered.  
"And?"  
"His name is _Luth'Huernen. _Khuaema told you, I think?"  
"Yes, Swift Horizon. He's a fine animal."  
"You like him?"  
"I do, he's magnificent."  
"Good. It'll take a bit to get used to his ways so the horse dealer told me. He can be quite excitable, but I'm sure there will be plenty of time for you to get to know him."

Pazu was silent for a minute.

"You mean?"  
"Yes," she smiled a huge sunlit grin.  
"He's…?"  
"He is, yes."  
"You mean, not only do we have a scullery thief in the village but someone is using our stable to put stolen horses in as well?"  
"Pazu! You are _impossible_!"

She play slapped him but he stepped aside and most of the slap's energy was dissipated against his shoulder.

"Hey, that's husband beating! Stop that!"  
"It only counts if I leave marks."

She advanced on him, her bare hand ready.

"Now wait… think carefully about this. Our future relationship…"

She whacked him across his thigh.

"Hey! That hurt!"  
"No mark. It doesn't count."

She kept advancing, he was running out of room. He saw the door behind him and edged towards that. She swung again but missed.

"Now look. Think about this. I'm stronger than you and I have longer arms."  
"And I have a tongue that'll lash you worse than my hand."  
"Our vows, remember our marriage vows. You have to honour me."

He stepped out backwards into the yard.

"I do honour you. With every blow I will honour your body."  
"Just not mark it?"  
"No, not mark it."  
"But you have to obey me too."

They were both outside in the sunshine now.

"You only have to tell me to stop," she chided  
"Not yet."  
"What? Are you enjoying this?"

His answer was a grin.

"Sheeta, you look magnificent."  
"I think so too."

They both froze, staring at each other. Their heads turned slowly towards the voice.

"Enjoying married life then I see, young Pazu?"

Shuna was there, and Amadea, and some of their neighbours, just inside the yard gate.

"We came to tidy up the bedroom for you… but if it is not convenient, we can return later."  
"No, no. It's quite alright," Pazu stammered, "Sheeta and I were just…er…"  
"Hitting him. I was just hitting him. I thought we'd start straight way so he learns his place now."  
"Very wise, Sheeta, I was just the same with Shuna. Only… well we had clothes on," Amadea said, "But we can leave you two to carry on and we will clear the house. It won't take us long."

Smiling she went past, her lady friends looking at Pazu.

"I should think you will need to hurry, wife," Shuna said, "Pazu looks like he might only last another ten minutes."

**  
**- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

_3 May 2007 _

_For author notes about Chapter Sixty Two, please see my forum (click on my pen name)_


	64. Chapter 63 : Harbour

**Chapter Sixty Three – Harbour  
**

Spring passed. As she had promised herself, Sheeta did pick lots of flowers and fill the house with their scent and colour and cheerfulness and she opened the windows and let the light and air in. They worked the farm together and Pazu began to do more work around the village; water and wind pumps, irrigation channels, sluices. He became quite good at working with water and his income from this allowed their life to become comfortable, despite the shorter growing season there would be this year and future years.

In late spring Pazu and Sheeta rode down over the border into Restormel and went to a port called Hormelle on the west coast. They stayed in an inn for a few days by the sea and simply relaxed, walking the beaches, strolling along the cliffs. Here they learned that the war was over. The politicians had begun talking again in the winter and throughout the spring. It had been decided to honour the fifty year old treaty drawn up between the royal houses but Marinaer would not relinquish Greycastle County to Restormel. It was agreed instead to create a new independent republic with open trading laws so that both nations could buy her coal. Greycastle Republic would officially exist from midsummer's day, and a provisional government was already in place drawn from local men but with a contingent of army officers from both warring nations overseeing the setting up of the new state.

--I--  
---o-o-oOo-o-o---  
I I

Summer came. The wheat and corn and oats grew tall and the strawberries in the patch by the orchard did well. Sheeta taught Pazu how to milk the yaoko and to draw cream from the standing wide low milk dishes with the big flat brass creaming spoon. She taught him how to churn butter and he tried to make cheese although this wasn't a great success, it came out rather pale and runny. But she thought that with a little more standing time and drawing off more of the whey to begin with it might work. He might, she said, given a bit more practice, even get something close to the soft white cheese her grandmother had once made. Pazu said nothing. It was this he was trying to make for her.

But the cream was good and Sheeta would sit in the orchard on summer afternoons in the cool shade and eat strawberries and cream. And Pazu? Well he was happy to just sit and watch her. There was something about the cream pouring smoothly and slowly over the red of the strawberries and seeing her spoon them into her mouth that led his mind to think of certain things. And even to recall another strawberry flavour from another time. And some days, he being a young man and very much in love, he would afterwards pick her up in his arms and carry her upstairs and demand that they once again celebrate their marriage.

"Again?" she would say, "We celebrated it this morning."  
"It's important that we celebrate," he would reply with a smile, "and anyway, you vowed that you would obey me. Now, undress me."

And she found that no matter how often he wanted to celebrate their marriage like this, she always wanted to obey, it excited her to obey him.

Pazu's work got him quite well known as a man good at making windmills and even waterwheels. He began to travel further afield, building a windmill near the county town of Ryhennin a few miles up the river and even going to Penaerth for two weeks where he laid some drainage pipes and plumbing and installed a bathroom in a rich merchant's townhouse.

He wrote a letter to Okami at the Ravine and told her and her husband that he was well and happy and where he was living, and that he was married and had a beautiful wife. He apologized for leaving so suddenly and not saying goodbye and he said that if his cabin and possessions were still there could they be donated to the worker's council and sold off, the proceeds to please be used to set up an orphanage. With the letter Sheeta included a doll for Madge, a soft, squishy, cuddly little yaoko she had made herself.

And throughout Gondoa people were still carefully watching him, watching to see what he did, wondering if he would do something silly like build a flying machine. They watched and waited and became puzzled but relieved when he did no such thing. But those who were of the Sky also watched and wondered. And these men were more patient, what they desired need not happen quickly.

And through the spring and summer Sheeta also secretly wondered. When? When she wondered, would it happen? She and Pazu lay together often, and rejoiced in each other's bodies, danced to the touch of each others fingers and mouths, and many nights, in the warm dark of that long summer, when their windows were open to let in the cool night air, her delighted cries could be heard across the fields and the lake. But still she bled each month and still her belly remained obstinately flat.

--I--  
---o-o-oOo-o-o---  
I I

One morning, very early, before it was light, she came. In a woodland glade beside the river she appeared suddenly as though from nowhere. She walked slowly and gently and softly between the trees, for she was in no hurry, time meant nothing to her. It was the middle of the month of Hoemaeyanir(1) and in less than two weeks it would be the autumn equinox when once again day and night became of equal length and after that the shadows would lengthen and the sun would climb less high in the sky each day, and the forest animals would begin to gather in food for the long cold nights ahead.

But this morning promised a beautiful day, already warm even though the sun was not yet up, and the eastern sky was only just paling. The heat of the preceding days held onto the soil throughout the night and kept the land warm. As the young woman walked she would let her hands trail through the undergrowth, her slender white fingers would ruffle the green leaves and on the bushes where she touched, blossoms would instantly bloom and flower for a day. The foresters and hunters who knew the woods would sometimes come across these late summer or even autumn blossoms, these strange freaks of nature and they would know who had passed by. And they would be glad to know that she was nearby and walking in their world.

But today the white maiden didn't stay in the forest but came out of the trees and walked down to the lakeshore. Her impossible sky of fair hair trailing on the grass behind her, she moved like a young man's dream along the greensward between the dark still water and the gently flowing wheat, the tall wheat that would soon feel the harvester's scythe. Beyond the wheat field in the low meadow some yaoko were grazing and as she passed she turned her head and smiled at them. They in their turn, sensing her, began braying in their raw, deep voices. It was an ugly sound, harsh and tuneless but when the yaoko sang the villagers knew it was a good sign. Some yaoko could be mute their whole lives but from time to time, and only infrequently, several of them would unaccountably sing like this for a few minutes, for fifteen minutes and occasionally for an hour.

The villagers knew who the yaoko had seen, who had passed by, and like the foresters it made them glad that she who was Life was with them. To the villagers the yaoko's cries were coarse and unpleasant but to the maiden to whom they sang, their voices were as sweet as the songs of angels. For they were simple creatures, ignorant animals who knew little and understood less. But they understood the maiden, and she understood them. She found them easy to understand because they had simple needs and so the relationship she enjoyed with them was complete and uncluttered by the complex emotions such as those that filled and confused men.

The maiden found men puzzling. They were so contrary and would make her sad with their lying and hatred, their bitterness, their inability to be free and honest with themselves. But some men she loved. Young people, children and simple people with pure hearts. And lovers. She especially was drawn to lovers, because lovers were her crucible, her raw clay where she could do the task she was here to do. The sweet joining of lovers was another song she delighted to hear. And she would sometimes come to a place where they lay and be with them simply for the joy of feeling their experiences, their pure vibrant honest feelings. And sometimes, just to taste their pleasure.

There was one farm down on the lakeshore where, she felt almost guilty to admit, she had often been this spring and summer. In this simple stone farmhouse there was a very special union. The story that was being told here was one of the most pleasing she had tasted in many years. The love that filled this place was boundless, honest and had hidden in it no lies or deceit or darkness. It had no agenda but giving; it had no theme but devotion; it had no plot but growth. The girl and the boy whose lives combined to make this pleasing aroma held back nothing from each other, no secrets, no doubts, no fears. It was a pure relationship such as the maiden rarely saw in men. It was not just the delight she took in the physical union she found here, although these sharp peaks of powerful emotion drew her like a moth to a candle. No, below the brief hot meetings of these two souls, days and weeks would pass where there was a beautiful calm undercurrent of selflessness, trust and respect.

She knew these two young people very well. She had been with them before in a dark damp place in winter and had chosen then to give them a gift of two seasons in which the girl would not be fruitful. She had done this so that they might grow together, that they might learn more about each other and have an uncluttered pleasing life. And also, she was not ashamed to admit, so they could simply enjoy each other. Again and again she would come here and be delighted at how much purity and pleasure was in this place.

Being near this boy and this girl was like being near a tree and watching it grow from a healthy eager young sapling, devoid of all disease, into a tall straight strong mature thing, powerful with life and lacking all parasites and creepers and ivy. She felt this tree might one day become great and that she might be able to create many lives from it, branching and spreading down the years and the generations. But that was for the future, today she was here for just the _now_. For today was indeed a very special day.

For today, Hoemaeyanir 20, when summer was ending and autumn almost here, at the dawning of the day, she had come to withdraw her gift. She had good reason to and it had to do with a deal she had struck with _Maerth-dhu_. He and she had not had a good year, she had been in the ascendant for too many seasons and he had lost too many arguments, had been cheated too many times of his dues. The maiden had been called by _Konuguen_ to a council that she knew _Maerth-dhu_ would attend and she knew that a call was coming to redress the balance. The world was always about balance, about life and death, about what is given and what is taken away. There had been one particular deal where she knew _Maerth-dhu_ had been furious and she felt that today he would demand of her, before _Konuguen,_ that she relinquish the life she had, contrary to that deal, so unfairly reclaimed.

And it was this that brought her here. To take away one gift and in its place grant another. The timing was crucial; it had to be today and near the beginning of the day. And it had to be here, for here was the boy who prayed. She stopped on the lakeshore at the waters edge and choosing a rock she sat down. The rock was in the shallow water but her feet made no ripples. She had a while to wait, for dawn was a little time coming yet and the girl and the boy were sleeping. But they would come. She knew they would, and she was patient.

--I--  
---o-o-oOo-o-o---  
I I

Sheeta awoke and immediately knew that today would be special. She didn't know how she knew. She just _knew_. To begin with she was wide awake at once and earlier than usual. She went to the window and drew the curtain and looked out over the orchard. The sun was not yet up over the Solstice Hill, it was still below the ridge but probably lighting the southern valley. It must be about five.

She turned to the bed to wake him but was surprised to see him already sitting up.

"Pazu do you love me?"  
"What a strange question. Of course I do."  
"Come with me then, I want you to do something with me."  
"Wait, let me get dressed."  
"No, just as you are. I want you just like that."  
"Where are we going?"  
"Out."  
"Is that a good idea? Remember what happened before?"  
"It is a good idea, trust me."

She led him by the hand outside and across the yard to the gate. He was nervous, but she kept talking to him about how much he was going to like this and how much she felt this was important. She opened the gate.

"Outside? You want to go _out_, out? Where? Nowhere near the village I hope?"  
"No, silly. Trust me. A little walk."

She opened the gate and went boldly out, not looking right or left to see if anyone was there. She knew they wouldn't be, she knew they were alone. How she knew was a mystery. She was filled with a happy anticipation and almost ran across the path to the wheat field. She opened the gate and then, this bubbling happy feeling almost bursting her open, she ran into the field, along the furrows. She felt the wheat ears scrape and scratch at her bare legs and between her legs and as she ran she held her arms out wide and laughed. She laughed aloud because the world was wonderful, life was wonderful, marriage was wonderful, love was wonderful and he was wonderful.

She had once walked in this very field and cried. Today she laughed. She more than laughed, she rejoiced.

Pazu stood at the edge of the field wondering if those stiff ears of wheat would do him any damage. Then the sun came up. It rose over Solstice Hill and flooded the field in golden light, the wheat suddenly became a swirling golden sea, waving and flowing. And Sheeta, in the middle of it, running in circles, her head thrown back and laughing and naked, was like a bird. A seabird wheeling over the ocean, calling and free. And Pazu knew he wanted to be like that. If people saw them, so what? They would be welcome to throw off their clothes and join them. He took a step, then another, then not caring if the crop cut him or not, he broke into a run and went chasing after her. She, laughing and crazy with happiness ran on ahead, he following and whooping with joy.

Even though the sun was only minutes old on this field she could feel it already on her skin, warming her, warming her senses, warming the land. He came after her at a run and squealing, avoiding him, she ran ahead down the slope, the yellow crop parting as she passed and bending a goodbye behind her. Pazu ran after her but didn't try too hard to catch her, he was enjoying the chase too much, enjoying the feel of the sun and breeze on his skin, enjoying the soft soil between his toes and the scraping of the crop on his naked body. And also, of course, enjoying the sight of her, happy and carefree and so much alive.

Suddenly he stopped. She was downslope of him and cutting quickly left to avoid a sudden turn he had made to close the gap between them, when he felt it. He looked at her running and turning, her arms spread back, her hair behind her like a cloud, her slim white form as pure as anything he could imagine. Watching her he knew that _she_ was here. It was her, here, running in the wheat. Sheeta had become her. She had become _Lucita_, the mother of life who gives everything. He couldn't make sense of this sudden thought, it just popped up as thoughts do. He was married to the life spirit, the one who gave him life and created life. She was right here, almost taking Sheeta over, as though replacing her briefly for a time. She was still Sheeta, still the girl he knew, but she was also someone else. It was a confused strange thought but what it meant to Pazu was that if she were life and could create it then if they had a union now, she would bear a child. That was the complete train of his thinking, it was no more organized or clear than that. It was merely a string of beads, ideas, impressions. And no sooner had this thought come up in his mind than he suddenly wanted her and his body became immediately ready. He looked down at himself almost in surprise but feeling the sun on his face, the soil at his feet and the air on his skin he knew. Now was a good time. Now was the perfect time.

"Come on!" she called over her shoulder, "swim with me!"

She ran across the lowest slope of the field, out of the wheat and over the grass, the muddy foreshore and down the gentle gravel bank. Beside a cluster of rocks and bulrushes where there was a shallow area she ran into the water and it careened up in sheets as her pumping legs divided it, struck it and sent it tumbling to the sides. As she ran deeper, shin deep, knee deep, thigh deep, the water churned and boiled and its weight slowed her progress until she had to wade forward, swinging her hips and shoulders in order to find the force to keep her legs moving through the resisting water.

Then she dived, and Pazu stood seeing that perfect arc, dreaming that perfect sight, that perfect form. For a moment as she lunged, she drew from somewhere a great burst of energy and for an instant as she threw herself forward, arms together above her head, legs and feet tight together in a line behind her, she came completely out of the water. She was airborne, free of ground and water, in the sky, a flying fish, white and silver and flashing. Droplets of water frozen in space behind her. The most beautiful thing she was, pure like a slice of joy, still laughing and better than anything man deserved to look upon.

Pazu stood. If he lived a hundred years he knew he'd never see something like this again. It was as if a spirit were here and he was in heaven or given the gift of seeing the spirit world. This was his wife, yet it wasn't her, it was her with another life inside her, adding to her, making her new, different.

_fertile_

That was the word that came into Pazu's mind, he had no idea how it was happening but he was somehow seeing the outward shape and spirit of the internal readiness of his wife. He really had never thought such a thing happened. Did other husbands see this? He didn't know. All he knew was that here, in this field of wheat on this lakeshore on this late summer dawn something had come down to be with her to make her ready and had fallen on him also to show him she was this way. It made no sense at all yet it made perfect sense. For that beautiful frozen instant when she was the silver crescent moon he could see everything about her.

This all went through Pazu's mind in the instant of time after Sheeta's toes left the water and before her fingertips touched it.

She struck the water with hardly a ripple and went under and the lake surface became quiet, the waves of her passing flowing out in a wide expanding arrowhead. Then several yards further on she surfaced and turning, tossed her head and water cascaded away as her mane of hair arced like rain. She swam away backstroke into deeper water. Pazu found the thought in his head to join her. With a shout he sprinted out of the wheat and down the grassy bank, running with a happy yell into the shallows but churning through them into waist deep water with far less grace than she.

The maiden in the white robe sat on the rock and watched them. Her hair golden like the sun, golden like the summerbird's call, flowing and curling near the rippling water. It did not touch it but lay waving as the wheat a little above its surface, coiled about in thick entwining strands of life. She waited. Timing was everything. It would be soon.

He swam out to her but she would not let him catch her. He had swum little in the Ravine, his work there gave him few free days and those he did have he would rather spend working on his flying machine than walking the two miles down the cliffs to the sea and going swimming. So Sheeta was easily the stronger swimmer and as he approached with his clumsy but muscular front crawl, she would backstroke almost effortlessly away, her white arms pinwheeling around and teasing him with brief displays of her chest as she moved.

She would swim a little and then float on her back waiting for him to get close, showing him her breasts and pointing out to him how cold she was, before, as he noisily approached, she would laugh and again swim away. As always, as it was meant to be, she led and he followed.

They swam for a while but Pazu called her eventually into the shallows. He found his footing and waded in until he stood where it was chest high. She swam to him and came close, still smiling.

"Isn't it lovely."  
"It is, we should do this more. It feels so good swimming with nothing on."  
"Cold though, even in summer."  
"Colder than last year?"  
"Yes."  
"Come to me," he called, arms open.

She waded to him and they held each other.

"Mmm… you're warm!" she said, hugging tight and laughing, "Oh, what's this?"

She reached down and held him where he was hard.

"When I was watching you run in the field. It just happened," he blushed, why he didn't know.  
"You are impossible, you naughty boy! I can't take you anywhere!"  
"Take me wherever you like, wife. Take me there now."  
"Now? This is just an early morning swim. A run in the fields."  
"Hm, I don't think so. This isn't about running or swimming is it? You brought me out here for something else, didn't you? Tell me."

He tickled her side and she wiggled and laughed.

"Don't! I can do some damage down here you know!"  
"Go on then, only don't break it."  
"Here? Now?"  
"Yes."  
"What if someone comes?"  
"They won't, I just don't think they will."  
"Me too. You know, I wouldn't be surprised if the whole village, the whole valley is sleeping, and only we are awake."  
"All alone in the world."  
"Hm, and naked."  
"Why?" he asked, he wanted to know her thinking.  
"So we can be here. Undisturbed."  
"Do you feel something?"  
"Ooh, yes."  
"No, not that, do you feel different?"

She stopped smiling and became serious. She did feel different. She had felt something was different about today from the instant her eyes had opened an hour ago.

"I do, like… I'm not sure. Like this is meant to happen."

He smiled at her. He knew exactly what she meant.

"It _is_ meant to happen," he agreed, "And I want it to happen."

The laughter and the fun ceased, like a curtain falling, a comedy ending. There was a moment's quiet while she gripped him and squeezing, gave him her mouth. They kissed. His hands came upon her chest and held her where her nipples were painfully hard from the cold water. As his hot hands covered her she released a moan. The kiss continued, becoming deeper and more frantic. He dipped his head down, her breasts were floating, the water level across them. He put his face to her there and closed his mouth over the peak of one.

"Hmm… hot. Your mouth is hot."  
"Shallow water," he said, breaking free.  
"Yes."

Pulling her by the arm he waded into the shallows near the reeds and rocks. They came to a muddy place where the wavelets lapped and he threw her down. The ground was soft here and her back became coated at once with dark mud. He was on hands and knees over her, sinking a little into the ooze. From his hair and chin water dripped on her. She lay, her legs in the water, her shoulders and back slick from the smooth mud. Her face was expectant, eyes wide. She was a little breathless from running and swimming and her stomach and breasts rose and fell rapidly. He held himself over her and looked.

He was suddenly elsewhere. He was back again in winter when they had shared a horse and ridden across the fells deep under snow the day after leaving Thoma's inn. He gazed upon this beautiful land, white and clean and smooth. Drifts of snow were here, she was like the world, like the land, like the soil but clothed in soft white. He gazed upon the snowy hills, the ridges of collar bones, the lines of her ribs were like the furrows in the fields. Like a farmer he walked those furrows. His fingers became explorers of this pure land, they walked upon the high hills and rested on their peaks that were capped with rocks, hard and textured. Across the valleys he went, deep into them and over the flat plain of her belly and deeper into her bracken and ferns. And he knew all her land that day, he explored it all, every ridge and hill and furrow and cave and hollow and forest and stream. He walked her lakeshore where the water was warm and he refreshed himself, drinking at her life giving pool.

"I ask to be refreshed and to drink of you," he asked, recalling his marriage vow, cupping his hands under her, lifting her, readying her.  
"Pazu, all I ever wanted was to be your harbour. Let me be that for you. Come into me and find a place of rest."  
"I hold you in my hands. I will never let you go. We join together and will never be parted. Hold onto me and be with me."

She was the whole world to him, she was _Lucita,_ the Earth Mother, child bearer and giver of life, she was the rich soil and he planted in her his seed. Her spine of land arched to receive it and the cries of children and of mothers were in her.

It was not a rough or vigorous moment but soft and quiet. The pleasure she felt was merely enough, enough to tell her it was over. She felt him pulse deep within her and slacken and reduce but after that, she felt something new. And near them, gently watching, the white maiden knew it was time. This was the reason she had come here today, now she could both create life and renew life. As the part of the boy that remained in the girl flowed within her she reached out the hand of her mind and held it, guided it, led it to the place it was needed. And waiting there in the hot dark of the girl's womb was the spark that it needed to meet. At the instant they joined, at the moment of meeting, _Lucita_ dipped her face to that seed and that spark and kissed them and wished them well, happiness and a joyful life. She would be back soon to ensure the small new life grew true and strong but now her work here was over and she withdrew, leaving with this girl and boy a special blessing; one gift withdrawn, another given. She had a meeting to attend, and a very angry _Maerth-dhu_ awaited her, angry because the stolen life she had taken back was now again set free and the wolf-man could not claim it until it had run its course of years. The little girl would live again.

Sheeta turned her head and among the bulrushes by a rock nearby she thought she saw something, something golden like a bird rise up and take flight. It passed over them and went away low across the wheat field where she could not turn her head to see it, and it was lost to view.

But she knew what it was. She knew exactly who that golden creature was. And as she lay there feeling the part of him he had left inside her, feeling him deep and draining down, she tilted her hips and felt that part of him come against a certain tiny part of her inside her womb. The part of him and the part of her met and joined and began. She knew the very instant of her daughter's beginning and she closed her eyes and hugging her sweating husband against her mud smeared body, she spoke a prayer of thanks.

**  
**- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

_3 – 4 May 2007_

_(1) The month of Hoemaeyanir (pr. Hoe-may-yaneer) equates to around our late August to September time. As I've said there are 8 months in this year and this is the third I've named (Rhayadhirrin (pr. Rye-had-here-in) when the Engine scene took place is late winter and Umsennemar (pr. Um-sen-hem-ar with the 'Um' pronounced as the 'oo' sound in 'Room') when they were married is early spring). I will do a full calendar and timeline when I'm done as part of the closing notes, so if you're obsessive about chronology you can find all that stuff there)._

_For author notes about Chapter Sixty Three, please see my forum (click on my pen name)_


	65. Chapter 64 : Renewal

**Chapter Sixty Four – Renewal  
**

For a while he sat in the soft wing-backed chair. Then after a few minutes he got up, went to the hearth and stoked the fire, adding a log. He watched the flames for a while as though listening, listening intently but he heard no new sounds. He straightened up and went to the window, looked at the view. Spring had come around again and was already blooming into summer and the apples on the trees in the orchard were growing from small green hard things into russet coloured plump fruit. But the view of the garden and the orchard and their second years' strawberry patch hadn't changed since the last time he'd looked at it ten minutes ago, nor since the last ten or eleven times he'd looked. He walked to the table and sat, picked up a pencil and began to roll it to and fro; rattle – stop – return it – stop – rattle – stop – return…

A hand picked up the pencil mid-roll.

"Pazu, try and relax. You are making me nervous."  
"How long does it go on Shuna? How long _can _it go on? I can hardly bear it. How can _she_ bear it?"

Pazu was reminded again of what 'it' was when another agonized cry came from above them, muffled hardly at all by the floorboards. It started low, then grew in volume only to be cut off with an awful gagging weeping sound. Pazu got up again, fists clenched.

"Why can't I go up?"  
"Because you _cannot_ Pazu. It is how we do it. It is bad luck to have a man in the room. She has three midwives with her. Between them they have delivered over fifty babies, and there are three more nurses there too," the big man put a hand on Pazu's shoulder, squeezed gently, "she is in good hands, my friend. The best. She suffers only because that is the way it is meant to be. Nothing is wrong."

A woman came downstairs carrying a bowl. It was covered with a towel but Pazu could see that the water in it was stained dark with blood.

"What news?" Pazu asked her  
"No change, nothing more."  
"Can I go up?"  
"Absolutely not. Now excuse me, I need clean warm water."

It was late afternoon. The sun was westering, soon it would go behind the trees. Pazu had watched it arc across the sky all this day, since mid morning. Since about nine when the cramping had begun. It had been nine hours now. Nine hours of relentless tearing agony. And that was just him.

How she did it without going mad he had no idea. When this was over he was going to hug her forever.

The sounds came again, starting as a low moan, building and building, becoming a screech. A voice interceded…

"Push. Push. _Push again_. One more, that's it. _Push!_... Good girl. Rest…"

The animal screech broke off to be replaced again by what sounded like sobs. Pazu looked at his hands, his fingernails had punctured his skin, his palm bled.

--I--  
---o-o-oOo-o-o---  
I I

She had been so happy, last summer, the dog days of that hot glorious summer. She had come to him one morning feeling awful, having vomited twice after breakfast. Even wiping her chin she came to him and hugged him, rejoicing. And as autumn came and then winter she no longer bled and her tummy began to grow and the two of them would lie in bed and cuddle it together as it got bigger and bigger. Sheeta had gone around the village with her huge belly proudly in front of her, delighting in showing anybody who asked. And at the _Suethelhin_ celebrations it transpired that she was one of only three women pregnant that year and they had been specially honoured at the Solstice Dawn, her baby would be the second of the year in the village.

This spring and summer, as big as a whale, she had still gone down to the lake and floated like an island in the cool water, Pazu wading next to her, splashing her belly and stroking it, kissing it, talking to it.

They had been so happy, it had been a wonderful year.

Then Artiana who lived near Mother Whindera had suffered a miscarriage and the village had been in mourning for her small bundle of life, so tiny it had not even properly formed. Gondoans rarely buried their dead, and in Bruaendell it was customary to burn the dead on funeral barges on the lake. The raft Artiana's weeping husband pushed out into deep water had been pathetically small and not one heart in the village had remained unbroken.

Two weeks ago many more hearts were broken. Uthemara had a terrible labour and had become exhausted. The baby was trapped and would not come out. Her young husband, not yet fifteen, had to choose between saving his wife's life or that of his child. He chose his wife.

The second small floating funeral pyre had been only a week ago. The village had only just finished mourning.

_Lucita_ still was. It was possible to bear the fury of _Maerth-dhu_ when he took the sick, the elderly and the criminal. But when he took the unborn, each innocent undeserving death was her own. How _Konuguen_ could see this as a fair balance she did not know.

--I--  
---o-o-oOo-o-o---  
I I

Nine hours into labour Pazu began to wonder if _Maerth-dhu_ worked in threes. Or fours.

Another awful screech rent the air and tore at his heart. He went outside, slamming the door, strode to the woodpile, hefted his axe and began to furiously chop wood. The mindless repetitive violence was the only thing he could do to vent his worry and fear and the sense of helplessness that he could do nothing to ease his wife's suffering.

Out here though, with the bedroom window open, he could still hear everything.

--I--  
---o-o-oOo-o-o---  
I I

But this life, _this_ life, thought _Lucita_, he would not have. Even if she had to give herself to preserve it, the wolf-man would not enter this dwelling today, for neither mother nor child. Two innocent lives in one village in one summer was enough, _enough. _He would not have a third, no matter what it took.

--I--  
---o-o-oOo-o-o---  
I I

Cry after cry came and the sun continued to sink, light was fading from the day now. Pazu shattered the last log with a final frenzied blow and cast the axe aside. He wiped his sleeve across his brow. There was crying again upstairs, and shouting. The crying went on, and on. He couldn't stand it anymore. He strode to the door.

and stopped.

Two people were crying, his wife whose crying was not that of pain but… different.

and someone else.

someone new.

It was a tiny reedy thing, weak and heartrendingly thin.

Shuna's face appeared in the doorway. Above his beard he wore a huge smile.

"Pazu, come. Come quickly."

He ran in and took the stairs two and three at a time. At the top he slipped and his shoulder struck the wall, the painting of the summerbird fell. He ran along the landing, the bedroom door was open. He stepped in.

She was there. And he knew. He knew her at once. He simply _knew_ it was her, she had been given back. She had been taken yet _Lucita_ had given her back.

The room was full of busily bustling women doing things with cloths and bowls and stools. The drapes of the bed had been removed so that the midwives had access and extra pillows had been put behind her shoulders so she was propped up and comfortable. A fresh coverlet was being placed over the bed by one of the nurses. She withdrew as Pazu approached.

One of the midwives spoke.

"Five minutes only," she wagged a finger at him, "Five only, I say, the lady needs her rest and we need to take the babe away to clean her."

Pazu was in a dream. In dreams time runs differently and the colours of things run, and spaces run and become distorted. The room became somehow sloped, it became a hill, a long climb. And much bigger, it took him a long time to walk up this hill to the bed. And the nurses and busy midwives became like ghosts and grew thin and pale and vanished away, unimportant. What was important was on the bed, the two people in the bed. He walked around it, somehow scaling this impossible mountain and knelt beside it. For a moment he said nothing, nor did she, and his daughter, well, she merely continued to cry as though she was cross that she'd been brought here against her will. No-one had had the common sense or simple decency to ask her if this was what she wanted. Right now it seemed it wasn't.

But it was what Sheeta wanted, and Pazu wanted this little person even more. He looked at his wife, her face was grey and she looked exhausted, marks under her eyes and hair plastered to her wet forehead, tear tracks down her face. But the tears she cried now were tears of joy.

Apart from that exquisite instant of frozen time last Hoemaeyanir at the lake at dawn… apart from then he had never seen Sheeta look more beautiful. He leaned forward and kissed her forehead.

"Is that all I get? After all that work?"  
"No. Later when you've rested I'll give you more. For years and years I will give you more, but for now…"

He leaned toward her again and kissed her mouth. Her lips were as soft and as gentle as the day they had first touched him, two years ago.

Sheeta turned the baby around so Pazu could see her but the girl didn't want to know, all she wanted was to press against her mothers breast, and complain loudly to the world about everything. The world had only existed for three minutes and already she had decided she didn't like it.

"Daddy," said Sheeta  
"Yes, mummy?"  
"Kiss her. Kiss your daughter."

Pazu did. He leaned forward a third time and gently pressed his lips against the thick mass of blonde curls. Blonde curls he had seen before. Just once before, dusty and forlorn and in a shed clutched against a dead mothers breast. Pazu knew these curls, he was certain.

"What will you name your daughter, daddy?"  
"Renewed," he said, "Renewed Again."

Sheeta, not showing the puzzlement she felt at the name, turned the small bloody bundle in her arms.

"Rhaeal-Aghana. Here is your daddy."

Rhaeal-Aghana gave her father a furious frown, a big deep grimace of a frown, as though he had a bloody cheek even daring to exist.

But she stopped crying.

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_4 – 5 May 2007 _

_For author notes about Chapter Sixty Four, please see my forum (click on my pen name)_


	66. Chapter 65 : River

**Chapter Sixty Five – River**

Sheeta made clothes, and earned money by making them for others. Together they ran their farm and the years were kind to them. They were happy as farmers. She was a good cook, very good. A little too good perhaps. As she grew older she became curvier, bigger in many places. But Pazu absolutely didn't mind this. He loved it, he loved her shape, her delicious woman curves. More of her to hold, more of her to love.

And of him? What of him? He never did build his flying machine and he never flew again. Not once. Instead he became an engineer. He began, as I have told you, with small things, wind pumps and irrigation on the farm. People saw his work and asked him to do things for them. He was paid a fair wage for his skills. Over time he became known in other villages and the towns and throughout Gondoa as a man who could work with wind and water, stone and iron. Through his twenties and into his thirties he built dams, and bridges and houses, he lay irrigation channels, set up wind pumps, built windmills, waterwheels and water powered hammers for forges. He even, when he was older, working with a large team of men under his command, built a canal between three of Gondoa's towns. He never worked with steam though, no. Never again. Just natural things, stone, wood, water, clay, iron.

He did though, from time to time, take his horse and a couple of pack yaoko and ride away for periods of two or three weeks, returning with the panniers of the yaoko bulging with hidden cargo. Their neighbours enquired of Sheeta where her husband went but she refused to say.

He became skilled at translating the books, so skilled in reading the old tongue that he could walk among the library shelves and pick books he knew would be useful, books on chemistry, physics, metal working, calculus, fuel systems, astronomy, metallurgy, hydrology, and of course, aviation. And at the end of the day, when his work was done and he'd finished shoveling the endless mountain of yaoko dung yet again, he would work late into the evenings at his translating work. And after the twin boys were born, three years after Rhaeal-Aghana, he would read to them, all sorts of interesting stories he would read about how men once lived in the sky and didn't ride horses but flew with wings.

He extended their house. He had to, their family needed the additional bedrooms. He couldn't build out into the yard or over the garden and on the lake side was the grain tower and he certainly wasn't going to demolish and move _that_. So he built an extension away from the lake on the south side of the house towards the lane. Downstairs was a large sunny room with big windows that became a family room, a playroom. It was reached by a door through from the parlour. Pazu built two bedrooms above the family room and they were reached by a new stair that he built up from that room, so the children if they wished, could rise and play or go outside to the latrine without them running backwards and forwards along the landing outside their parents room. He cut an opening in their bedroom wall and made a doorway to the two new bedrooms, so that if bad dreams and tears came in the night Sheeta could go to the children, or they could come to her. And this they sometimes did early in the morning, running into their parents room and bouncing on the bed and interrupting whatever was going on there and making their mummy laugh and their daddy cross.

But as to flying? No, that was a dream for others, and he never once looked to the sky, at least not when people were looking. Until _that_ day.

--I--  
---o-o-oOo-o-o---  
I I

Rhaeal-Aghana grew like crazy and one day he awoke and she was thirteen and suddenly full of grace and slender and taller than her mother and her hair was long and fair and he looked at her running across the yard with her first proud dot of blood bright on her forehead. She had, when she was small, always hurt him, just by being. Just her hair would hurt him, he always saw that small dusty tangle of blonde hair held fast against a dead mothers breast in a pitiful dirty shed. But one day, the day she was thirteen and she was suddenly a woman, he forgot. He saw someone new, someone _Lucita_ had taken because she was innocent and good and pure and remade her, used again the parts of that dead child. And _Lucita_ had looked upon that shed and chosen to reuse all of her, leaving behind only the memories. And in his workshop, seeing her run across the yard, Pazu stopped work and sat quietly a moment by his lathe, and he prayed. He prayed his thanks to _Lucita_ and for all her kind works.

_Maerth-dhu_ of course was furious, not only had Pazu cheated him of so many lives in a war that never was, but the little girl's life was his blood payment in a deal she and he had agreed, but _Lucita_ knew that life went on, and on, a gently rolling endless thing, like a road a person walks, or a storm cloud that builds in front and fades to a whisper behind, always being renewed, never ending. _Maerth-dhu_ would have his payments again of course, he would go on taking and she would go on giving, creating life. He would end it, she would begin it. It was a fair exchange because she loved to create, loved to give, it was her whole reason for being. As long as there were things living on the earth this would happen. It would be this way for that was how it was meant to be.

But Pazu and Sheeta knew it would happen. One day it must, it was in the nature of men. In the same way that it was in the nature of lovers to make irrational decisions and throw away a promise of great things so that they might have just each other, they knew that it was in men's nature to not stand still. Men would come. Engineers would look for coal, for iron ore, builders would come looking for stone. And not everyone in Gondoa was happy. Many were poor and starving and a farming life was not what every man wanted. Some day a man in strange clothes would turn up at some struggling farmers door. Perhaps a farmer whose child was ill and who needed expensive medicine, or a man whose heart was broken by a fresh stone across the entrance to the family barrow mound and who wanted only to go away and leave this place and its black memories behind. And a stranger would come and buy that land and begin digging and a mine or a quarry might come there, and then a processing plant would be needed to crush, wash and grade the stone. A railway line would be needed to carry the stone away and bring fuel for the mine's machinery, and food for the workmen's stomachs, or a canal might be dug. And the canal or the railway would bring workers and a town would happen and later that town might need an aerodrome and the flying machines would come. And that was how it happened, by small stages that people might hardly notice. Inconsequential things, as tiny as drips of water in a cave, but over time, change was inevitable.

It may not be this year, or the next, or even in their lifetimes, but it would come. Time was a river, flowing slowly yes, but always onward. Each man was like a boat. You could row swiftly with the river and progress quickly on, or you could row against the stream for a season and stay in place. But you would eventually tire of holding your vessel against the current and you had to flow away eventually. Some men rowed against the river all their lives but they passed away and the river flowed on. In Gondoa, men had rowed against the flow for seven hundred years but their time was ending, the river could push away even seven hundred years of stubborn men's hearts. And this river had no banks. You could not row to the shallows and get out and rest. Onwards, it always flowed onwards. That was how it was, the very existence of _Maerth-dhu_, and _Utomu_ and _Lucita _and_ Konuguen_ required it to be so. It could only stop if there was nothing, not even time, not even life. The existence of life caused events and events caused time, and time caused the river to flow.

There would one day no longer be the soil, or the sky, these trivial arguments of men. There would only be the future, something so different to what men expected. Men's expectations were limited by their narrow horizons which is why the soil and the sky had once seemed so important. The decision would not always be between the soil and the sky.

--I--  
---o-o-oOo-o-o---  
I I

One late summer day when the boys were eleven and Sheeta was thirty one (and still, Pazu thought, as beautiful as the day he had first seen her, rounder yes, but still as beautiful), they were helping her in the lakeside field, gathering the harvest. Rhaeal-Aghana, now fourteen and already a woman in full bloom, was nowhere to be seen, she was off again in the hills with that Kyehana boy, riding his pony and getting up to things in the summer woodland Sheeta would rather not think about. Pazu was in the yard banging away at a stubborn bearing on a pump for a family in the next village. There came a sound, a noise that cast a shadow over that harvest day. Not a bad shadow, just a long one. Pazu, despite the noise he was making, heard it first. It was a sound he knew well, like the cry of his own baby it was a sound he always reacted to. Even though it was more than fifteen years since he'd last heard this sound, it was suddenly yesterday.

He came out of the yard and looked up. At the same time, in the lake field he heard the boys shrill voices, shouting, their arms pointing up. It came over the trees at the foot of the valley, low and slow and droning like the king of bees. It was silver and puffed up like a giant cigar, a control deck hung below it. Windows from which faces looked down. In the sides were portholes and on the flanks and at the stern large silver airscrews spun, grabbing fistfuls of invisible air and compressing them, whirling them around and forcing them backwards, pushing the great ship forwards like a swimmer in a lake. There was writing on the side but he didn't need to read it, to know what it said. It said _the future_, it said _progress_, it said _the end of these days_. The airship went smoothly away up the valley following the ribbon lake along the shoulder of the mountain. The boys were ecstatic, jumping up and down and screaming and waving. From the control deck men stuck their heads out of windows and waved back. One threw something down, a cylinder with a long red cloth streamer attached. It fell in the wheat and the boys ran to pick it up, Tormola always the slightly faster one leading, the slighter, blonder Phuta at his heels.

Inside the metal cylinder was a rolled up glossy coloured handout. It was just an advertisement, it named the company that operated the airship and told the prospective customer that they carried passengers and cargo and mail between towns in Marinaer and Restormel and the new independent Republic of Greycastle. And in bold lettering across the bottom it named a town in southern Gondoa. The future was coming, thought Pazu, looking at the paper. And it was almost here.

Tormola was ecstatic, on the back of the written sheet were pictures of the company's five airships, each one different, each one a fantasy for a little boy.

And so it came that a few years later when Tormola went away for a year and returned as a man a summer later, he came back not suntanned and muscular and riding a horse or bringing home a girl with a big belly, but he came from the sky. A small fast sleek red craft came over the village and turned, hovering above the square, with a whoosh it descended in a cloud of dust and squawking chickens and open mouthed children. The small fast red ship settled to the ground on stubby wheels, the sharp whine of it's engine dying in the dust, the spinning turbine of the gas motor winding down. A clear cover slid back and a man got out. He wore a one piece canvas flight suit over a broad chest and muscular hips. He disconnected an air hose and a power hose from his suit and a third hose that pumped fluid around his suit close to his body to prevent the blood draining from his brain in high–G manoeuvres. He pulled off a bowl-like round glass and metal flying hat. And there stood Tormola, his shock of red hair hanging low over his eyes, smiling and suddenly the centre of a crowd of staring girls.

They crowded round wanting to see who this new man was, touching his strange clothing and looking inside his peculiar flying craft. Tormola shut off the Ogilvy-Moreau gas drive and disconnected the actuating lever of fine crystal. Checking the power chain was shut off and the fuel pumps locked down, the wheel brakes were on and no inquisitive child could start her up, he stepped away from _GD-117 CV-44 Anstruther_ and let the little boys and girls scramble over her. No bigger than a farm cart she was and one of the bigger boys, showing initiative asked:

"Where's the propeller, mister?"  
"No propellers, my friend, an Ahmtuillian gas drive."  
"A what?"

And so the blood of the forgotten prince came back to Gondoa. Seven hundred and twenty years the dream had been in his heart, passed on from father to son across the nations and the seasons, through the earth of men's bodies, through the spirit of their dreams. The bloodline might easily have ended in that council chamber with a decision to end it all, to prop up the museum of royalty and the clutter of the rules made by men long dust. If that had happened who can say where the river would have flowed, nor how long Sheeta and Pazu might have lived.

But the river flowed on, it flowed through time and through men's hearts. And although _Paetsu Fuhmonhir_ no longer existed, what that name stood for continued on and in the circle of dust and frightened chickens and pointing awestruck pretty girls, time went on. A small drip it might be and the changes might be slow, but drip it would, drip and drip, some small, some bigger and one day the drip would become a flow. The dream of men went on.

--I--  
---o-o-oOo-o-o---  
I I

One day, a few years later, when she was bathing, he went into the bath room and stood looking at her, at the beautiful valley of her chest, that sacred place where his lips would worship her. The blue stone no longer lay there, and even if it had, neither of them could have drawn a spell from it. There were times when he missed the stone, it felt as though she were not complete without it. And on those days he would regret their decision. But then he would look across the yard and see their children and across the village and see the place he had come to love and that had come to love and accept him. Had the stone remained, had she remained Queen and he a lost prince, this village now might not even exist, war might have come and swept it away. Their children might not exist and they might not even be together, but separated, the figureheads of opposing factions.

He, or she, might even be dead.

When he considered the decision in those terms he realized it hadn't been a decision at all, not a hard one. The path had seemed to divide, there had seemed to be a choice but that wasn't true. There had only ever been one path, that the Engine under the mountain must sleep, to give up her stone, to end the Gondoan royal line, to avoid civil war and for them to marry. And to have life.

"Shall I wash your hair?" he offered  
"Hm, please. That would be lovely."

He walked to the bath. He noticed she had that look in her eyes, the lids half closed as though she were a little tired. To anyone else she just looked bored, but Pazu knew what that look meant.

"Pazu, I have been thinking."  
"About?"  
"I'll be thirty six next month, I'm not getting any younger, and well…"  
"Don't be shy with me, nothing you do or say can embarrass me."  
"We have Rhaeal-Aghana, and the boys…"  
"Men," he corrected  
"Yes, men. But, you know, another baby would be lovely, don't you think? Perhaps another girl if _Lucita_ will bless us with one?"  
"Yes," he replied, pulling his shirt over his head and climbing into the bath with her, "yes, I agree, another baby would be lovely."

--I--  
---o-o-oOo-o-o---  
I I

Which was how their fourth child came to be born. A second beautiful girl, this child had thick lustrous reddish hair like her mother and father and the first thing she did when she came into the world was smile. She wore a wide grin for hours after her birth, and even smiled gently when she slept. When she fed she even made a sort of chuckling happy sound (which, considering where she was, Pazu could quite understand). They named her Lucita, and the spirit after whom she was named delighted in her and blessed her with grace and strength and a sharp happy mind and a delicious femininity that the boys in the village would fight over just to be near. Despite the joy of Rhaeal-Aghana and the strength and intelligence of the twins, laughing Lucita was their favourite child, they loved her until the day they died.

To her he was again Pazu, just plain simple, clumsy, gorgeous Pazu. Sheeta never again called him _Paetsu_. At least, she didn't know she did. But there were times, late in the night when they thought the children were asleep (but they were secretly listening and learning) when they lay together, and she pulled him against her and he came into her and her back would become an exquisite arch and her mind became the rainbow and her voice would call out that name, crying out a name she never spoke. And afterwards she would lie gently with him and softly weep her thanks using that name.

"_Paetsu, Paetsu, yau taemo. Yau al-dhu' ulve om."_

One night, afterwards when sleep was almost upon them, a thought came to him.

"You know, perhaps I should fly again. Take you up in that gas-scout of Tormola's."  
"Hm... why?"  
"Just so I can land it. Just so you can get out and walk away. So I can say I did it."  
"Hm… no need," she was close to sleep, drifting away.  
"Why?"  
"You brought me here, as though we were flying. Sometimes it felt like a dream, but mostly it felt like we were flying. You landed here, a beautiful landing. The best you ever did. I don't want to walk away from this."

She put an arm out and lay it across his chest, smoothing the pads of her fingers across his skin. She lifted her head, kissed his chest and lay back down. Her blue eyes seemed large and dark and they were calm and open and watching him. He looked at those eyes for a time, watched them finally close, and felt her gentle breathing. Felt her against him, her warmth and softness, a heart at peace. He leaned forward and pressed his lips to that sweet forehead. Then he lay back, staring at the ceiling, at the hills outside blue in the moonlight. A good landing, yes. His best. He closed his eyes. He slept.

_- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -_

If not for you,  
Babe, I couldn't find the door,  
Couldn't even see the floor,  
I'd be sad and blue,  
If not for you.

If not for you,  
Babe, I'd lay awake all night,  
Wait for the mornin' light  
To shine in through,  
But it would not be new,  
If not for you.

If not for you  
My Sky would fall,  
Rain would gather too.  
Without your love I'd be nowhere at all,  
I'd be lost if not for you,  
And you know it's true.

If not for you  
My Sky would fall,  
Rain would gather too.  
Without your love I'd be nowhere at all,  
Oh! What would I do  
If not for you.

If not for you,  
Winter would have no spring,  
Couldn't hear the robin sing,  
I just wouldn't have a clue,  
Anyway it wouldn't ring true,  
If not for you.

**Bob Dylan – If Not For You, 1970 **

_-oOo- _

_The End _

_-oOo- _

_- this is for you, Mark : nice one - _

_- and to Miyazaki-san : again, thank you - _

_-oOo- _

_4 - 5 April (mostly)  
__16 April & 5 May (polishing) 2007 _

_"Hills of Moonlight" : a sequel to "Laputa : Castle in the Sky"  
2 March – 5 May 2007_  
_MSC _


	67. Authors End Note : Love

**End Note – Love**

First of all, thank you for reading. It means a lot to me when readers stick through 65 chapters and nearly a quarter of a million words of my attempts to entertain. It means I might, just might, be doing something useful. There are many days when I doubt it but occasionally I think some of this is worth doing. A chapter here, a chapter there stand out above the others and like faithful old dogs I like to go back to these time and again and give them a stroke.

If there is one recurring theme in all my stories it is love. You don't have to look hard to find it. To me it's the centre of my world, my whole belief system. If you love people, everything is alright. I'm not just talking about the love a girl has for a boy, or a boy for a girl (or if it's what floats your boat, between two girls or two boys), or, come to that, love within a family. If everyone loved the people close to them, their neighbours, their work colleagues, their school friends, their teachers, their business partners, their political opponents, the people in other countries… then the world would be as near perfect as us weak humans can make it. Love means respect, tenderness, forgiveness, devotion, helpfulness, selflessness, kindness, honesty, caring, communication, contact. If people loved one another there would be no war, no crime, no profiteering by individuals or companies, no exploitation, no lying, no rumour mongering, no talking about people behind their backs, no racism, no crazed kids with guns massacring people in colleges, no ambulance-chasing lawyers (yay!), in fact no lawyers at all (double yay!), no stupid divorce settlements, no religious hatred and intolerance, no unfairness. I think we could pretty well get a handle on world poverty and starvation and global warming and HIV / AIDS too. And definitely on drugs and cancer caused by tobacco. We would, at one fell swoop, actually have Heaven on earth, or as close to it as makes little difference(1).

If there is a motto in my life it is: _Love Everything for Love is Everything_.

Feel free to quote me.

But of course it's not an easy path to walk. The human impulse means we do lie, we do cheat and steal and hate and covet riches. I try with my puny willpower and God's help not to but it ain't easy.

But what I love to write about and what totally enchants me about all kinds of love is the romantic heterosexual love between young people. I find the whole aspect of the first feelings of it in children and young teenagers, the first awakenings, the first stumbling attempts to understand and control and channel and give it quite hopelessly charming. At times it's heartbreaking, at others it's beautiful but at all times it's fascinating. The first physical encounters are an extension of this and I think that's why I delight in writing such scenes. I get such a huge buzz out of feeling the new sensations these young people feel and imagining how their hearts must be feeling when they fall in love and the other person responds. When that happens your world is perfect; you do not need anything else and trying to impart those feelings to readers via words on a page is a very rewarding pastime. One day I would like to write professionally and if I can earn a living by enchanting people with my stories of love I'll be a near-enough totally fulfilled person.

When I wrote "Attic Room" I was very dubious about how people might receive it and doing this to one of Ghibli's pure and 'untouchable' couples was bound to be misunderstood by some people. However my whole thinking behind that story is highlighted in four key places:

1) when Seiji brings out the condom – here we see a boy who cares. Caring is vitally important in a relationship and I wanted to show a Seiji who really demonstrated to Shizuku that he had thought about this and cared about her. This wasn't just about what he wanted, it was about _them_.

2) when Shizuku is in the bathroom and thinking about her old school lesson, and what she subsequently takes from that lesson into the bedroom. I also wanted to show how much she loves and respects her parents here.

3) at the end when Seiji climaxes and Shizuku climaxes with him for her second time. She bursts into tears. Yes there is physical pleasure here, but when she cries, it is sheer love that makes her cry, sheer joy, total and unbounded happiness. Crudely speaking she could probably have achieved almost as much physical enjoyment with her own fingers. But this isn't about an orgasm. Not in the slightest. Here there isn't a meeting of two bodies but of two _people_; two people in love. It's the love that she feels for him and she knows he feels for her that makes her cry.

4) but my favourite moment is the morning after when Seiji awakes and looks at her and feels this incredibly powerful feeling of love and caring and he makes then a promise to himself to stick with her no matter what.

I enjoy writing about sex and reading what others write, sure, it's a nice buzz right? But it's what comes after the sex scene that really interests me. Did the writer just do a moist sticky groping little PWP or are they going to tell me more about these people? Why did they just do that? What are their motivations? Do they care? Are these people having sex or are they making love? There's a huge difference. In "End of Summer" I wrote about a set of events that paved the way for two young people to find in themselves a reason to commit. "Attic Room" was, in crude terms, the sex scene (I think it had a little more to it, but essentially that's what it was). But "Other Side" was the really important story. This was the "afterwards" the rest of their lives, the commitment. Like Peter Jackson once said in an interview: _"You only make 'The Fellowship of the Ring' and 'The Two Towers' so that you can go on to make 'The Return of the King'. You make the first two movies just so that you can make the third."_ I really only wrote "End of Summer" and "Attic Room" so that I could then write "Other Side". "Other Side" just would not have worked without the first two 'volumes'. I didn't see it like that at the time though. At the time I saw each story as an end in itself. But part way through "Other Side", probably at around the time they got married, I finally understood what it was I was doing.

Moving on to "Castle in the Sky", in this story I saw a movie that had in it a lot of potential (heh, at first I didn't, for months I didn't but someone who has grown into a good friend during the gestation of "Moonlight" pointed out to me the possibilities and his nudging led me to see them). During the movie this girl and this boy endure a number of traumatic incidents that the viewer can see are bringing them closer and closer together. There is no real discussion between them, no apparent thought process going on, no articulation even of any need one might have for the other. The viewer is given nothing specific... yet when the movie ends the viewer _knows_ Pazu isn't just going to take Sheeta home to Gondoa and then, hands in pockets whistling tunelessly, walk the long walk back to the Ravine. No, you just _know_ that hidden in that story Miyazaki tells us, there is a budding love. I saw that and knew there was an interesting story there to tell.

And this is it.

My imagination took the end of the movie as a base start point, and then fuelling that with incidents in the movie that might generate 'push' factors afterwards (mainly the crash of Goliath and the investigation by the Agency into why) and incidents in the movie that I took and then twisted and developed (the floating of Sheeta down into Pazu's arms - the first and greatest image of the whole movie incidentally - became a really key thing for me, it pretty much defined my story and who Pazu was), I began to plan out a story. Originally it was fairly simple and involved Pazu finding out he was a Gondoan Royal Prince, the two of them getting to her village (and being obstructed by the war and various adventures that entailed) and he being unable to stay there because the Gondoans didn't want flight and would throw him out. He would then give up his royal status and become a common man just so that he could live with the girl he loved, giving up everything for her. And really, with one or two minor bits of icing, that was the cake I started with.

And in the way I usually work I added things as I went. I thought at first this story might be as long as "End of Summer" and might run to about two dozen chapters. Har, har, har, how innocent and foolish I was. If someone had told me when I started that the end would not come until 65 chapters and 218,000 words later I would probably not have written it.

But I am very glad I did. Because a lot of that expanded story revolved around their relationship, their clumsy mismanaged early attempts to understand each others needs. The whole language thing was originally a simple device to generate a couple of romantic scenes. These eventually took form in "Kaesu" and "Hearth" (the Hearth moment is when Sheeta tells Pazu what "_Yau he-ayerth al om-e tuh_" means and she also reveals to him the link between _he-ayerth_ and the phrase "_Ur he-ayerth mo_". But once I had the language it seemed easy to work it into various scenes and make them a little more interesting, a little deeper, to knit the fabric of the story a little tighter. I also originally introduced the concept of _Lucita_ the birth/life spirit simply as a device to bring out a little more depth to Sheeta's character. And, well, that concept just went _way_ beyond what I planned for it. It turned into a whole spirit pantheon, almost a whole worship and faith system. And this spirit world plus the language plus the very brief couple of shots we have of Sheeta's farm in the movie became the building blocks of the entire Gondoan society I ended up with. And I'm really glad I went down that route because I think this society we have in Gondoa pretty much holds up the second half of the story – all the Sky/Soil argument comes out of that – the Engine/Daughter crystals thing gains more because of that, their wedding gains so much from that, and so on.

But weaving through it all, right from the beginning, right from "Toes" (well really right from "Descent" where Sheeta is huddled under the poncho watching Pazu fly the glider and finding him fascinating to watch) and through the character of Tanner teaching Pazu in the fields, through the coming together of the two of them in the back of Hamar's wagon that night at the Cross Keys Inn, through the fear of the chase and killing of Hempser, the trauma of the debris of war, even the sadness Pazu endures when he finds the bodies at the farm, his delicious cutesy light-bulb moment of revelation in "Following", everything that happened in the forest and the cave, their conversation in the snow storm outside Thoma's inn, their struggles against the Gathering and the final scenes in the Engine chamber, their marriage and their children – all of this has running through it the fact that they are made for each other, will do anything, _anything_ for each other and will die or go to the ends of the earth for each other. For love.

_That_ is the story I wanted to write. Yes it's an adventure story, yes it's an action story, but first and foremost (and last of all, after everything else is said and done) it's a love story.

I felt a need to write more about Shizuku and Seiji at the end of "Other Side", but with these two lovers I really do feel as though I have said all I need to say. What happens in their future life as their children grow up, as _they_ get married and have their own children and as Sheeta and Pazu grow old together doesn't really need to be told. I've said it already.(2) Sheeta said it way back in Chapter 17 "Hamar" when she said this:

"_Pazu… I just want to be left alone. To live in peace, have children, see my children have children, and die. No one can ask for more, or deserve less."_

To that, I think Pazu's answer would be:

"_Sheeta, my love, I will be there with you. I will share that with you. I will grow old with you. And one day, with you, I will die."_

And that is devotion, that is love.

And that is all I need to say about that.

(1) Well, we'd pretty quickly have a very overcrowded earth though with all these causes of death removed so we'd all have to practice serious family planning, not that I think that's a bad thing.

(2) I may write more... I never say 'never' but right now I don't have a strong desire to like I did at the end of "Other Side".

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

**Song Lyrics:**

All the time while writing I have music playing, usually on the old iPod. It keeps me sane, keeps the ideas flowing. If I stop writing a moment to think about how something needs to come out and stare out the train window I might hear a snippet of a song and that gets me going again. While writing "Moonlight" I listened to a lot of Vienna Teng as I am doing all the time these days. I also listened to quite a lot of Irish folk music, particularly Clannad, Enya, a Christian album I have by Nick and Anita Haigh called "Heartcry : Celtic Roots and Rhythms" which has some great fiddle work on it and a very unusual album by the Mediaeval Baebes called "Worldes Blysse" which is medieval music sung by a bunch of university students (so I understand), almost all voices, deep drums and pipes. The last few albums really helped set the mood for the Gondoan part of the story. Folk and medieval singing is exactly how I imagine some of those evenings in the great hall in Bruaendell sounding. Vienna Teng again provided some key lyrics for the story, particularly "Harbour". That song is, for me, to Sheeta and Pazu what her "Eric's Song" is to Shizuku and Seiji.

I wanted a set of song lyrics to end the story, as I did with Snow Patrol's "Chasing Cars" for the end of "Other Side." I just could not choose but in the end a coin-flip led me to putting Bob Dylan's "If Not For You" up there which sort of fits because if it were not for one person who inspired and helped me a lot through this the story wouldn't have been written. Hence the dedication. But the other song that almost went at the end was Vienna Teng's "Gravity", and as I want to use it because it sums up the relationship Sheeta and Pazu have so well, I'm including it here.

Hey love  
Is that the name you're meant to have  
For me to call

Look love  
They've given up believing  
They've turned aside our stories of the gentle fall

But don't you believe them  
Don't you drink their poison too  
These are the scars that words have carved  
On me

Hey love  
That's the name we've long held back  
From the core of truth

So don't turn away now  
I am turning in revolution  
These are the scars that silence carved  
On me

This the same place  
No, not the same place  
This is the same place, love  
No, not the same place we've been before

Hey, love  
I am a constant satellite  
Of your blazing sun  
My love  
I obey your law of gravity  
This is the fate you've carved on me  
The law of gravity  
This is the fate you've carved on me

**Vienna Teng - Gravity, 2002**

Now some nuts and bolts type stuff...

**The Calendar:**

On this earth-type planet the year is 360 days. This is divided into 8 months each of 45 days. A month is defined by the two moons Tahro and Ptamos passing from conjunction to conjunction (i.e. they both occupy the same vector in the sky). Weeks are 7 days of 24 hours.

The 8 months and the seasons they fall under are:

Month 1 Rhayadhirrin. WINTER.  
Month 2 Umsennemar. SPRING. Spring Equinox (Umsenneshuu) is on the 33.  
Month 3 Luhlemandieh. SPRING.  
Month 4 Amthume. SUMMER. Summer Solstice (Amthuelhin) is on the 38.  
Month 5 Urwriddin. SUMMER.  
Month 6 Hoemaeyanir. AUTUMN. Autumn Equinox (Hoemaeyshuu) is on the 33.  
Month 7 Torthufudurn. AUTUMN.  
Month 8 Suethelhinaar. WINTER. Winter Solstice (Suethelhin) is on the 39.

**Pronunciation:**

Rhayadhirrin : Rye-had-here-in  
Umsennemar : Oom-sen-hem-ar  
Luhlemandieh : Loo-lem-an-dee-ay  
Amthume : Am-thoo-may  
Urwriddin : Ooer-rid-in  
Hoemaeyanir : Hoe-may-haneer  
Torthufudurn : Tor-thoo-foo-dern  
Suethelhinaar : Sway-thel-hin-ar

Umsenneshuu : Oom-sen-esh-oo  
Amthuelhin : Am-thway-lin  
Hoemaeyshuu : Hoe-may-shoo  
Suethelhin : Sway-thel-in

**Timeline:** (if you can read it with ff dot net's stupid stupid refusal to accept formatting...grrr...)

**Year...Month...Date...Season...Event**

5790..Torthufudurn...7...(late autumn)...Pazu is born (1862 his calendar).

5791..Luhlemandieh...7...(late spring)...Lucita Toelle Ur Laputa (Sheeta) is born.

5795..Suethelhinaar...11...(early winter)...Sheeta's parents are murdered. Her grandmother takes care of her.

5796..Amthume...22...(early summer)...Pazu's father photographs Laputa (July 1868 his calendar).

5798..Urwriddin...2...(late summer)...Pazu's parents die in a gas explosion.

5804..Suethelhinaar...43...(early winter)...Sheeta's grandmother dies. She works the family farm alone for the next two years.

5806..Luhlemandieh...7...(late spring)...Sheeta is 15.

5806..Urwriddin...26...(late summer)...Sheeta is kidnapped from her farm by Muska.

5806..Hoemaeyanir...(early autumn)..."Castle in the Sky" movie takes place.

5806..Torthufudurn...3...(late autumn)..."Hills of Moonlight" begins. Pazu and Sheeta fly the glider to Tanner and Morwen's farm.

5806..Torthufudurn...3-11..(late autumn)...Pazu and Sheeta at Tanner's farm.

5806..Torthufudurn...7...(late autumn)...Pazu is 16 (1878 his calendar).

5806..Torthufudurn...11-12...(late autumn)...Pazu and Sheeta journey to Rutsford in Hamar's wagon.

5806..Torthufudurn...13...(late autumn)...Morning: Pazu and Sheeta chased by Surun's men. Pazu kills Hempser.

5806..Torthufudurn...13...(late autumn)...Evening: Pazu's first kiss in the ruined barn.

5806..Torthufudurn...17...(late autumn)...Pazu and Sheeta reach the abandoned farm. Pazu first sees Sheeta naked.

5806..Torthufudurn...17-19...(late autumn)...They stay at the farm for three nights.

5806..Torthufudurn...23...(late autumn)...Pazu and Sheeta steal the air-machine, crashing it in the forest in Restormel. Sheeta is shot but healed by Pazu drawing an _Aminhir _spell from her stone.

5806..Torthufudurn...23-28...(late autumn)...Pazu takes care of Sheeta as she recuperates in the cave.

5806..Torthufudurn...29...(late autumn)...They find the library and lose their virginity to each other in the cave.

5806..Torthufudurn...32...(late autumn)...They reach the inn in Restormel.

5806..Torthufudurn...33...(late autumn)...They meet Shuna and Keya. Pazu draws a _Lirhum_ spell from the stone.

5806..Torthufudurn...34...(late autumn)...They set off north with Shuna.

5806..Torthufudurn...34...(late autumn)...Evening and night at Thoma's inn. Pazu overdoses on _timsu_ smoke.

5806..Torthufudurn...35...(late autumn)...They arrive at Bruaendell and confront Surun and his men.

5806..Suethelhinaar...5-7...(early winter)...The Gathering debates Pazu's lineage.

5806..Suethelhinaar...39...(early winter)...On Solstice dawn Pazu has a "road to Damascus moment" and decides to lead a rural life and go native.

5807..Rhayadhirrin...11...(late winter)...The Gathering's decision.

5807..Rhayadhirrin...40...(late winter)...Auyhonia and the Councillors arrive at Sheeta's farm.

5807..Rhayadhirrin...41...(late winter)...Sheeta puts the Last Engine to sleep.

5807..Rhayadhirrin...42...(late winter)...Sheeta relinquishes/abdicates her royal status and becomes a commoner. Her stone is given up.

5807..Umsennemar...13...(early spring)...Pazu, Shuna, Tomba and Asbela win the yaoko shearing festival.

5807..Umsennemar...33...(early spring)...Pazu and Sheeta are married.

5807..Luhlemandieh...7...(late spring)...Sheeta is 16.

5807..Hoemaeyanir...20...(early autumn)...Sheeta conceives Rhaeal-Aghana on the lake shore.

5808..Amthume...29...(early summer)...Their daughter Rhaeal-Aghana is born when Sheeta is 17 and Pazu 18.

5810..Suethelhinaar...39...(early winter)...During the winter solstice celebrations the twins are conceived when Sheeta is 19 and Pazu 20.

5811..Hoemaeyanir...44...(early autumn)...The twin boys Tormola and Phuta are born.

5822..Urwriddin...(late summer)...The airship flies over the valley when the boys are 11, Rahaeal-Aghana is 14, Sheeta is 31 and Pazu 32.

5824..Torthufudurn...6...(late autumn)...Tormola goes away for his _P__ead-lth-u'or _when he is 13.

5826..Luhlemandieh...16...(late spring)...Tormola returns in his gas-speeder _Anstruther _12 months (a year and a half) later when he is 15. Sheeta is then 33 and Pazu 34.

5829..Amthume...11...(early summer)...When she is 36 Sheeta conceives Lucita when she and Pazu make love in the bathroom.

5830..Umsennemar...33...(early spring)...Lucita is born on Sheeta and Pazu's 23rd wedding anniversary.

5830-????...And they all lived happily ever after.

The End


End file.
